


Secondfloor Fantasy Canon

by Alice_Majella



Category: Secondfloor RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 37,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Majella/pseuds/Alice_Majella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for non-consensual science, and people locked in cages.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Irene slunk through the dark streets, trying not to be noticed by people going about their day-to-day lives. It was a thin line between looking suspicious, and being surreptitious, but she thought she was treading it just fine.

There were footsteps. Irene told herself for just a few seconds that it was coincidence when they turned to same corner not long after she did, but the success of her mission hung by too tenuous a thread to take such a risk.

She wouldn’t be going straight to the Corkman tonight. They would have to meet without her. She couldn’t risk leading a spy so close to their lair. The key information Irene had been about to deliver would have to wait until she’d lost him, however long that might take. She hoped that Sam would not be too worried when she didn’t arrive at the Corkman, but knew she’d understand the precautions that must go with a successful revolution.

Irene ducked inside the first bar she saw open. She was in a shady part of town, but there was no way to lose her tail unless they were convinced she had reached her destination for the evening, and that that destination was not a seditious one. ‘ _On Top_ ’ read the sign on above the door, though Irene doubted the bar was at the top of anything, unless it was a list of top ten bars you were likely to be knifed in.

“Hey,” said the man behind the bar.  He was lean and well-muscled, with short-cropped dark hair and a charming smile. Irene momentarily forgot her mission. “Can I get you anything?”

“Just a cordial, thanks. Elderflower,” said Irene, pulling her eyes away from his. She had to keep her head clear to focus on the mission, especially with this set back.

She took in the room while she waited for her drink, flicking her eyes back to the door to note anybody who entered just after her. If she had a tail, they would surely be more subtle than that, but she kept her eyes out all the same. You couldn’t be too careful.

It was several minutes later, and Irene had settled into a dark corner of the bar, nursing her elderflower cordial, when he entered the bar. She knew at once that it was him, although she couldn’t say what gave him away. He was tall and dark-eyed, most of his face obscured by a curtain of midnight hair, but beneath a neat beard his face was young. He didn’t look like a threat to the cause, but Irene wouldn’t be alive today if she didn’t know that looks can be deceiving.

Irene sipped her drink and leaned back against the wall, trying to look as though she were casually waiting for a date to arrive, not protecting the secrets of a society sworn to die for the freedom of the nation.

The newcomer approached the bar and leaned against it, his eyes scanning the room all-too-casually as he waited for the barman’s attention. They passed straight over Irene, but she knew that he had seen her. It only remained now to discover what his mission was – whether she was to be captured, killed, or simply followed – and to ensure that it wasn’t carried out, before she could safely make her way to the Corkman, and deliver the information.

She could feel him watching her whenever she looked away – intense dark eyes cutting across the room, pinning her in place, trapping her away from where she needed to be. She would need only a second to get away, but it was a second she didn’t have. This man, whoever he was - and whoever he was working for, for that matter – was good. He bought drinks, he chatted with the other patrons, and he never, for one moment, let her out of his sight.

She may have heard his footsteps, thrown his attempts to discover their meeting place, led him into this bar, but Irene was starting to feel that he had somehow orchestrated that. As the evening drew on, she noticed the meaningful looks passing between him and the bartender. They were subtle, and to anyone without Irene’s years of experience in reading every glance, every movement, for hints to purpose and allegiance, they would have gone unnoticed.

By the time she was halfway though her second drink, Irene knew she had walked into a trap. It would only be a matter of time before it closed around her.

Irene got to her feet. It was time to act, while there were still enough other people in the bar to act as her cover. Taking her drink with her, she strode across the room. If she could force them to act before they were ready, while the bar was still crowded, she might be able to slip through their clutches.

The tall, dark-haired man stood at one end of the bar, closer to the door. The bartender was at the other, serving customers. As Irene rose, she saw them exchange a look. The bartender raised his eyebrows. She thought she saw the tall man give a slight nod. Reluctantly, Irene placed her hand on the hilt of the stiletto dagger she wore concealed beneath her clothes.

Both men began moving from either end of the bar towards her. Irene tightened on hand on her dagger, and knocked the patron next to her. He stumbled, spilling his drink, and Irene did the same, her glass crashing to the ground and shattering around her, splashing the man with elderflower cordial. “Oi, watch where you’re going!” he growled. Irene ducked quickly out of his field of view, and nudged someone else forward in her place. With any luck, the man would be too drunk to notice, and the ensuing fight would keep at least the barman occupied, leaving her with just one of the two to deal with.

But when Irene glanced out of the corner of her eye to check how the two men were reacting, she found that the distraction had drawn the attention of neither of them. They were leaning toward each other from either side of the bar, heads so close together that their foreheads were almost touching. “Tell me I haven’t been misinterpreting your glances all night,” said the bartender quietly.

Well, Irene thought, clearly _I_ have.

The tall man was silent for a moment, and the bartender stepped back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make assumptions.

“No.” The tall man shook his head. “No, you’re not making assumptions. Not at all. I’ve just… I’ve just never seen anyone like you before. Perhaps when you’re not working sometime…”

Taking her cue, Irene quietly slipped out the door.

 

“Jason, no, bad!” Sam snapped, without taking her eyes off the drinks she was pouring.

Jason looked sheepishly at the tall glass on the table in front of him, which had just refilled itself at the snap of his fingers. “I’m paying,” he protested, and with another snap of his fingers Sam felt the purse at her belt grown heavier.

“But nobody _else_ knows that,” Sam retorted.  “They’ll think I’m letting you siphon it off without giving me any money.”

Jason sighed, snapped his fingers one more time, and placed the coins that had appeared in them in Sam’s hand. “Thank you,” she said, and slips them into her purse.

Jason placed an elbow on the bar, and leaned across to Sam. “She’s late,” he said, in a low voice.

“Do you think I haven’t noticed?” Sam asked. “Go out the back and start the meeting. I’ll send her in when she turns up.” Sam didn’t say _if_. She’ll turn up eventually. They haven’t had a death for… nigh on two years now.

The night drew on, and Irene didn’t appear. Sam fiddled nervously with the studs in her ears, and wiped the bench over again. Irene would be here any minute now, she told herself. She’d just taken a circuitous route to make sure she wasn’t being followed. It was a dangerous world out there, and you couldn’t be too careful.

The last customer left the bar, and Sam had to give in to the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Irene wasn’t coming to the meeting. Pushing away all the awful scenarios already playing out in her head, Sam locked the door and left the bar for the kitchen, and thence to the back room,  the threshold from her life as the owner of an ordinary tavern to that of a revolutionary, working tirelessly to bring about a better world.

The meeting was well underway when Sam entered the room. “Look, what I’ve been saying all night,” Phoebe was saying, “Is that we _need_ better intelligence. You’re supposed to be a wizard, Jason. Can’t you do something more useful than summoning alcohol? Can’t you summon us some kind of superspy?”

“We’ll have the intelligence we need,” said Cass quietly, “Just as soon as Irene turns up.”

The room feel silent. Nobody said what Sam knew they were all thinking – that Irene might never turn up. It was a shadow that hovered in the back of their minds every time someone was late, every time someone decided making the meeting that night was too much of a risk. Until they had overthrown their oppressors, it would be a fear that never went away.

On the other side of the closed door behind her, Sam heard the kitchen door creak open. Footsteps across the floorboards. She held her breath, and swallowed hard, turning to face source of the sound. Though she didn’t like to carry a weapon, she’d started carrying a small knife when this lot had set up base in her back room. She was glad of it now.

Behind her, she could hear the revolutionaries picking up drinks, laughing, ensuring they looked like  a drunken party that hadn’t wanted to leave when the tavern closed, not the freedom fighters they truly were.

“Hey!” Sam called through the door, “You’re a little late, aren’t you?”

“Sorry,” came the response. “I got held up by Ralph.”

At the familiar countersign, Sam felt the room around her relax. “We thought they’d got you,” she said.

Irene looked at Sam seriously. “They almost did.”


	2. Chapter 2

“And they went home together?” Sam stared at Irene incredulously. It was hard to tell if she the expression on her face was one of laughter, or one of disbelief.

“They did,” Irene said, trying to keep the conversation serious. “I hung around to make sure I wasn’t followed. They closed up the bar, and went home together.”

Sam started laughing. “And you’re sure this man was following you?”

“He was,” Irene said. “I’ve been in the business long enough to know a threat when I see one.”

“A threat so dire he went home with the first hot bartender he saw?” Jason asked. He didn’t want to doubt Irene’s story, but the idea of a serious counterrevolutionary losing sight of his goals so easily in the face of an attractive man _did_ seem a little absurd.

“You have to take this seriously,” Irene insisted. “If he hadn’t seen that bartender, I could be dead. He could have followed me here, and our cover could have been blown. He was a serious threat to the cause.”

“She’s right,” said Phoebe. “We can’t take any chances.”

“Thank you Phoebe,” said Irene, shooting a glare at Sam. “And that’s why I believe we have lain in the shadows for too long now. It’s time. Time for us to act, to throw off the shackles of oppression, and live in a free society once more. For too long we have allowed _Citizen_ Anton—“ Irene always refused to refer to the king by any sort of title, preferring where she could to use the egalitarian ‘Citizen’ or better still, ‘Comrade’ “—to dictate our every move as an organisation, allowed ourselves to be cowed and paralysed with fear of the retribution that may be rained down upon us. But comrades, we cannot allow this any more! Tonight’s near miss has shown us how close we are to disaster, how easy it would be for them to undo all our work. But, though they may not know it, the people of this nation are relying on us to gain, and to _defend_ their freedoms. We must fight _back_ against the injustice that is monarchy. The longer we wait, and plot and plan, the longer we sneak through darkened streets and hide in corners just in case someone is watching, the longer innocent people are forced to toil under this oppression. This cannot go on! It is time for us to have a _vote_ , to have a true choice in how we are governed. It is time to rise up, to make a stand, and to fight for a truly democratic society, an end to the tyrannical rule of this _citizen_ who calls himself _king_!”

Despite any previous misgivings they might have had about Irene’s account of the evening, the revolutionaries got to their feet as one and began to applaud. “Hear, hear!” cried Jason, thumping his tankard on the table, and feeling inspiration and revolutionary fervour rising within him.

“So,” said Irene, “It’s time to get to work. Phoebe, Cass, you’re with me. We’re going to find this man that followed me and take him in for questioning before he can do any harm. We need to find out exactly what his mission was and prove that he was sent by the crown. The rest of you - we need good intelligence on Citizen Anton’s place: layout, routine, residents, any weaknesses we can find. Who’s up for it?”

“I am!” Jason answered. He still felt the sting of Phoebe’s earlier remark. It wasn’t like he only used his magic when it came to drinking. Though he didn’t look it, Jason was easily the best wizard of his age – and probably of several generations either side as well. And with Irene’s rousing speech still ringing his ears, he resolved to use his powers for the Cause.

Phoebe looked at him curiously. “Do you have skills in espionage?” she asked, not unkindly.

Jason shook his head. “No,” he said. But he was a wizard, and he had access to all kinds of magical realms the others could only dream about. “But I’m sure I can find somebody who does.”

 

Jason carefully locked the door of his workshop, and began to light candles around the edges of the room. Taking a piece of chalk from the box on the table, he traced, freehand, a perfect circle in the centre of the room. He hadn’t done years of schooling at the Academy to need a compass for his summoning circles.

The circle drawn, he added a septagram in the centre of the circle, and then began to move the candles so that one stood at each point, along with a small offering to each of the Seven Gods. When he reached the final candle – the black candle – he picked up a ceremonial silver dagger from his workbench and pricked the tip of his thumb, squeezing a few drops of blood into the flame. It flared brightly for a moment. Jason knew that he was ready.

He sat down beside the circle, and opened his favourite spellbook on his knees. The chapter on summoning spells detailed a whole host of universes to choose from. He could summon the Lizard Men of the Fire Realm, who would do his bidding, but might just burn the hand that bound them, or the Soulless Demons of the Black Void, who could move amongst, unseen, but left a sinister chill in the air. The Khroxi’iryq of Sagn-Lo, who were known to make excellent spies, but whose language impossible to pronounce with human vocal chords, posing a logistical problem when it came to gathering their intel.

Jason leafed through the pages, until his eyes alighted on something which looked promising: the Avian Race of Caloundra. Yes, that was exactly what he needed, Jason thought as he scanned the text. Hyper-intelligent birds able to learn human speech. Perfect. If he could summon one and bind it to him, he could order it to move among King Anton’s minions, even his councils, unnoticed.

Jason read over the required chant a few times, and then began the ritual. The room darkened, and an unholy vortex began to grow in the centre of the septagram. The pages of Jason’s spellbook turned rapidly in the wind it created, but he paid them no mind, declaiming the words confidently as the magic took force.

As he reached the final word, the vortex died down, quite suddenly. The candles flared up once more, and Jason looked to the middle of the septagram.

What he saw there left him both surprised and confused. It was a young women, curled up as though she had just been lifted from a comfortable sleep and placed in his magic circle. She was dressed in soft-looking purple trousers and a matching top. Whatever she was, it was definitely not avian.

Shaking light-brown hair from her eyes, the woman blinked sleepily at Jason. “Where am I?” she asked, looking around the magic circle. She didn’t appear concerned by her new location, just baffled.

“Oh,” she said,” as her eyes landed on the purple candle that stood on one of the seven points marked on the circle, its lavender flame flickering softly, “I like that one.” She reached out a hand, and—

“No!” said Jason, leaping to his feet, ready to cross the room towards her. Until he blew out the flames, the binding spell would not be complete, and this strange woman would have no obligation to do his bidding. “Don’t—“

But it was too late. The woman picked up the candle. The circle was broken.

“Where am I?” the woman asked again, and then, obviously experiencing the disorientation and exhaustion that came with inter-dimensional travel, fell asleep.

Jason sighed. So much for being the best wizard of his age.


	3. Chapter 3

“Is this the house?” Phoebe whispered.

“This is the one,” said Irene. “This is where I followed him to last night.”

“Right,” said Phoebe. “I’ll check out the front. Irene, you go round the back. Cass, take to the skies.”

Nodding, Cass mounted her broomstick and rose in the air, while Irene followed Phoebe’s orders, heading around to the back of the house.

Given that this had been a one-night-stand with an attractive bartender, the three women hoped they would catch the tall, dark-haired man taking his leave in the early hours of the morning. Concealed in the pre-dawn light, Irene, Cass and Phoebe would remain unnoticed until they nabbed him.

Unfortunately, Irene had failed to take into account what else might be concealed in the pre-dawn light.

The attack took her by surprise, a sharp pain shooting through her neck before she even knew what had hit her. Irene had just enough presence of mind to let out a high-pitched “Coo!” – the bird-call they had agreed to use to signal danger – before a heavy weight landed on her from behind. Irene was knocked off her feet. She struggled, kicking out at her attacker and reaching for the knife if her belt, only to have her arms pinned behind her. And then suddenly her world was spinning and shrinking, going dark before her eyes. The last thing Irene saw before she lost consciousness was two dark eyes staring down at her from beneath a curtain of raven hair.

 

Even from her vantage point above the house, Cass didn’t spot the dark shape lurking behind Irene until it was too late.

When she heard the bird call, however, it didn’t take her a moment to act. Cloak billowing behind her, she swooped down from the roof tops and dived straight for Irene’s attacker. Her broom collided with him point on, and he fell away from Irene. At that moment, Phoebe appeared from the other side of the house, and tackled the man to the ground, pinning him down while Cass tied his wrists with the unbreakable rope she wove herself in her witchy den.

“Good team work!” Cass said enthusiastically to Phoebe, as she completed her knot-work. “Don’t you just love defeating the ones that are highly trained?”

Phoebe nodded, but soon both women’s attention was drawn away from their success, and toward Irene, who lay moaning on the ground, eyelids fluttering. A small dart protruded from the side of her neck.

Phoebe wrinkled her nose and sniffed. “Coldstream berries,” she said.

Cass nodded, noting the strange smell of vegetable peel that hung in the air, characteristic of the deadly berries. Her face was solemn as she looked at Phoebe. “If she’s lucky, she’ll last till sundown.”


	4. Chapter 4

To Jason’s relief, the woman didn’t wake for several hours. That gave him enough time to clear away the summoning circle, and  - more importantly – to shelve the spellbook that was now rapidly descending his list of favourite spellbooks. Avian Race of Caloundra indeed. Whoever she was, she was definitely not Avian. She looked like she was more likely to have wandered in from the street than from another dimension.

She looked so ordinary, in fact, that Jason was starting to feel very bad about his earlier plans to bind her to do his bidding. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain this, but hiding the evidence was definitely high on the list. He was carefully rearranging the books on his shelf to hide _The Compleat Wizzard_ from view to this end when he heard the sounds of movement behind him.

Jason turned to see the woman rubbing her eyes, and looking around the room once more. “Where am I?” she asked for a third time – although this time with a little less confusion, and a little more accusation.

“Well,” said Jason slowly. “This is my workshop...”

“Okay.”

“And…” he hesitated. “To be honest I was expecting someone a little more… birdlike?”

To Jason’s great surprise, the woman started to laugh.

“Are you a member of the Avian Race of Caloundra?” he tried instead.

“Of course,” the woman responded. There was a bright flash, and where she had a been just a moment ago, a parrot perched. It was quite a large parrot, with resplendent, vivid plumage in every imaginable shade of purple.

Well, thought Jason. More avian. But, surprisingly, _less_ suited to espionage.

In a flurry of feathers, she transformed back into human form. “You didn’t do your research very well, did you?” she said.

Jason tried to resist the urge to glance behind him at _The Compleat Wizzard_ , and failed. It deserved the glare he gave it. He supposed it _was_ quite out of date. “I tried,” he said. “So you’re a shapeshifter? You’re not avian, you can just shift into avian form?”

“Oh no,” said the woman. “What you just saw, that was my natural form. I can take human form as well, if I want.”

Silence fell. Jason suddenly became aware that she was seated on the ground in the middle of his rather messy workshop, and that as well as having a lot of questions to ask, he had an awful lot of explaining to do. “Do you think maybe we could have lunch?”

 

Jason’s kitchen, as it turned out, was not much neater than his workshop. The shelves were mostly empty of things that weren’t of the order of eye of newt, and the mysterious concoction that bubbled away on the fire was definitely not something you wanted to eat.

“Um…” Jason said, ineffectually shuffling papers on the table. “I guess we could go out and find something?”

 

Ten minutes later, with the woman dressed in one of Jason’s old robes (‘You can’t go out in that purple garb. They’re so matchy. Are they night clothes?’ ‘It’s not _my_ fault I was sleeping when I got here.’), the two of them set off down the street. Jason found his feet carrying him towards the Corkman, before he had even considered the conversation that would await him inside. He had promised them somebody with skills in espionage, and he hadn’t even gotten around to asking this woman’s _name_ , let alone her spying credentials.

He settled for an establishment not far down the road which sold flatbreads with a variety of toppings, and called itself _Pronto’s_.

“I think we got off to a bad start. Let’s try again,” he said, as they took a table by the window. He extended his right hand. “I’m Jason.”

“Lara,” said the bird-woman, and shook his hand.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Jason ran a hand through his hair, and pondered exactly how to explain the situation. “So I kind of summoned you from your home dimension…”

“Yeah, about that.”

“Well, I was hoping for a bird…” Jason swallowed. This was definitely going to be awkward. He may as well get on with it. “I was hoping for a bird to help me in gathering some information, you know, looking around at some places.” He hoped it came out sounding casual – more like house-hunting, less like treason. The woman nodded, but didn’t say anything, so Jason ploughed on. “I guess you could still do that, if you wanted—“

“Well, I’m still a bird,” said Lara. “What’s changed?”

Jason felt as though he was sitting an examination. “Well, if you were just, you know, a bird-bird, then you might have been… You might have been more likely to just obey my instructions.”

Lara watched him levelly across the table. It was apparent that she knew he was bullshitting.

“I was going to cast a binding spell on you,” Jason blurted out. “But you broke it when you moved the purple candle.”

“So now you’re not going to cast a binding spell on me?”

“Of course not!”

“Why of course?”

“Because you’re a person. That would be unethical.”

“I was a person before I moved the candle.”

“Yeah…” Jason fiddled with his eye-glasses. “I thought you were a bird, though. I know that doesn’t excuse it, but the way we were taught ethics at the Academy—“ Jason stopped himself. Falling back on blaming his poor lecturers for his own failings wasn’t a path he wanted to go down. It was his fault he’d been caught up in the excitement of a summoning spell, and hadn’t really considered the ethical implications of binding any being described as ‘hyperintelligent’. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

“Can I go back home, then?”

Jason paused. Dismissal spells were notoriously difficult to get right. The chance of leaving someone floating between dimensions was high, much more so if they hadn’t been bound within a circle properly to begin with. “I’ll work on it,” he said. “You can think of this as a holiday?”

The bird-woman looked at him warily. “Alright,” she said.

“So,” said Jason, “what do you like on your flatbread?”


	5. Chapter 5

Pain. That was the first thing Irene felt when she woke up. The only thing, to be honest, spreading from the pounding in her skull all the way down to the aching cramp in her feet. She felt as though her veins were on fire, pumping a horrible, burning heat throughout her body. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was red.

She didn’t move. She wasn’t sure if she _could_ move, to be honest. She couldn’t even open her eyes. She tried, and—no. Definitely a bad idea.

There was noises around her, distorted, like they were travelling through water to reach her. People moving, voices, even.

“She’s moving!”

“Good, it must be working. Keep at it, Cass.”

An acrid smell filled Irene’s nostrils. “Open your mouth,” said one of the voices.  Even far off, it sounded panicky. “Come on, Irene.”

Steeling herself, Irene opened her mouth, just a little. Something landing on her tongue – something cold and sour and _burning_ , still burning.

“Swallow,” said the same voice, and Irene did, just to get whatever it was out of her mouth.

That was better. The pain subsided slightly. She prised open her eyes, and waited as the dark shapes around her formed themselves into people. Cass, Phoebe and Sam stood around her, their faces with matching worried expressions.

Cass held a piece of cloth in one hand, and a cauldron in the other. “I think the potion’s working to dull the pain,” she said, “But it’s not doing anything for the poison. We need a wizard to extract it somehow. Where’s Jason?”

“There was no-one at his house,” said Sam. “I don’t know, can you scry for him?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Cass responded.

Irene let her eyes droop closed again, listening to the sounds of the room as she tried to piece together what was wrong with her. She remembered being outside an unfamiliar house. Whose? She didn’t know. And then something had hit her neck – yes, that seemed right. The burning, though it was better now, seemed to start at her neck, and then there’d been a pair of dark eyes, and then…nothing.

 

“We’re losing her again,” Phoebe said. Cass quickly passed her the cauldron, with a distracted, “See if you can get her to swallow more of this,” while she herself kept her eyes on the bowl of water in front of her. Scrying was perhaps more wizards’ work than witches’, but she’d scried for Jason enough times that this shouldn’t be hard. Taking a pair of scissors from her pocket, she carefully cut a scrap of fabric from the jacket he’d left at the Corkman some night many months ago, and placed it on top of the water, watching as it darkened and sank to the bottom. Using the blade of her scissors – in place of the willow wand that wizards always insisted was necessary – she stirred the bowl thrice widdershins, and then waiting for an image to reveal itself.

 

When it did, Cass frowned. Jason was not in his workshop working on some new spell, as she expected. He wasn’t even still in bed, or visiting the Academy or the apothecary which Phoebe ran to pick up supplies. He was sitting a small table, in some kind of food establishment, across from a pretty girl.

“He’s on a date?” Cass said uncertainly.

“Well tell him to get off a date, and in here,” said Phoebe, leaning over Irene.

“This is scrying, not telepathy,” Cass retorted.

“Where is he, then?”

“Give me a minute.” Cass leaned closer to the bowl, so near that her long, chestnut hair almost touched the surface of the water. “I can’t see anything to tell me,” she said. “They’re eating flatbread, I think?”

“Sam?” said Phoebe. “Jason lives near here, you know area. Can you recognise where he is if Cass describes it?”

 “We don’t have _time_ ,” Cass wailed. “We can’t check every likely shop in the neighbourhood. Don’t we know any other wizards?”

Phoebe shook her head, and began to squeeze more of the potion out of the cloth onto Irene’s lips.

She straightened suddenly. “Wait,” she said. “You two carry Irene out into the courtyard. I’ll get the cart ready. She may not be a wizard, but I do know someone.”


	6. Chapter 6

The building Phoebe drove Cass and Irene to - clattering the cart across the cobbled streets at a speed that got them more than one angry look, along with a few choice words shouted at them by pedestrians who leapt from their path – was in the Student Quarter, not far from the Academy itself. It was a nice-looking house, not the sort of place you would expect to accept a witch carrying a sloshing cauldron and looking very much like she’d slept in her clothes, a feverish and slightly bloodied revolutionary leader, and an apothecary who’d just driven hell-for-leather halfway across the city in a cart that still carried barrels of beer on its tray.

Phoebe leapt from the cart and pounded on the door all the same, and – at a shout of “It’s open!” from somewhere within the depths of the house, let them all in. They carried Irene carefully down the hallway, one on either side of her, Cass carefully trying to keep her cauldron upright in her other hand as she went. At the end of the hall, they could hear the sound of enthusiastic singing, accompanied by the twang of a banjo. “Who is it?” called a voice over the music.

Cass glanced at Phoebe, and they mutely and mutually agreed that this is a situation better shown that explained through shouts down a hallway. They entered the room that the voice was coming from.

The sight that greeted them was not exactly what Cass was expecting when Phoebe promised her someone who wasn’t a wizard, but who may well be just as useful in the sight of Coldstream poisoning. A woman was lounging on a couch, a glass of something strong-smelling in one hand, the other tucked up behind her head. Perched on a stool in one corner of the room sat the bard they had heard from the hallway, his hands momentarily frozen over the strings of his banjo as he took in the new guests, his voice still open in forgotten song.

“Phoebe!” said the woman on the couch. “It’s been a while.” She looked remarkably unperturbed by their entry.

“Who’s the bard?” Phoebe said, by way of answer. Cass almost told her to get to the point, but anything that happened in this room could give away details of the revolution, and the less people who were present, the better.

“Him?” said the woman. “Oh, they call him the Blue Bard. He’s singing that new song to me – you know that one about the super-strong warrior who can fly, and the shapeshifter? The one who turns into a bat? They’re so in love. It’s beautiful.” She sighed, and then suddenly got to her feet. “But to the point - off you go, bard. You know singers can never keep their mouths shut.” The bard gathered his banjo and headed out, while the woman turned back to Phoebe, Irene and Cass. “What’s this?”

“Irene,” said Phoebe, and with Cass’ help, carefully lowered Irene onto a vacant armchair. “Coldstream poisoning. She took a dart to the neck.”

The woman sucked in air through her teeth. “Ooh, that’s bad. Was your wizard not up to it?” Cass caught a certain smugness in her voice as she said it. “Well, let’s see what we can do with science. You, witch--“

“Cass,” Cass supplied.

“Thank you. Bring me that bottle from the bench. Yes, the open one. The spirits.”

Cass fetched the bottle. It was half-empty. She looked warily at the woman, who was now listing items for Phoebe to fetch from her various cupboards. While Cass had nothing against this modern ‘science’ – which looked to her a lot like what witches have been doing for years – she wasn’t sure she trusted someone who practiced it under the influence. She handed the bottle to the woman all the same, and watched as she moved quickly around Irene, cleaning her wound, and then swabbing at a patch on Irene’s arm with the spirits, before inserting a fine, fine glass tube into one of Irene’ s veins.

A few tense minutes later, and a few more ‘injections’, as this woman of science called them, and the woman sat back on her heels. “That should do it. We’ll let her rest for an hour or so, and then take some measurements and see how she’s doing.” Business done, she turned to Cass, and smiled. “I’m Luci.”

“Thanks,” said Cass, because she wasn’t sure what else to say, but at least it didn’t look like Irene was going to die anymore.

“Any time,” Luci answered. “Now, I think you two owe me a story. Would you like some tea?”

 

“Keep an eye on the man in the cellar,” Phoebe had ordered Sam as she climbed into the cart with Cass and Irene. “See if you can get him to tell you anything.” Sam hadn’t told Phoebe that she wasn’t technically _part_ of the resistance, she just ran the tavern. It hadn’t really been the moment. Instead,  she cleaned the benches, served the customers who wandered in for a lunch-time drink, reassuring them all that her friend was just ill, that’s all, no, it was nothing to worry about, you saw them taking the cart? That was just to get her home, it’s fine, wiped the benches again, and put all the lunch dishes away neatly before she faced the fact that there was an assassin in her cellar, tied up there amongst the vintage wines.

She supposed she should go and check on him. He’d been there since early that morning, so she pulled a mug of weak ale, and gathered some bread and cheese from the kitchen before she opened the trapdoor to the cellar. She wasn’t putting off facing the assassin. She just wanted to make sure he didn’t starve down there. It was one thing to have someone who tried to kill your friends locked in your cellar, and another to have a dead body. She’d choose the former any day.

Hands full of provisions, Sam clambered awkwardly down the ladder. “Hello,” she said loudly when she reached the bottom, because she hardly wanted to _surprise_ the assassin locked in her cellar. She placed the provisions carefully on the top of a barrel which she knew without looking sat beside the bottom of the ladder, and lit a lantern on the wall.

She almost didn’t see the man. He was tied up with Cass’ unbreakable rope in the far corner of the room, clothes dark, face hidden by long, black hair. But he looked up when the lights went on, and of all things, he smiled at her.

“My name’s Samantha. I brought you some lunch,” Sam said. The exchange felt a lot more casual than she had imagined it would. She crossed the room, carrying the food and drink, and set it down in front of him while she contemplated the logistics of allowing him to eat while not giving him a chance to escape. Eventually – and tentatively – she ensured all the other knots were out of his reach and untied his left hand.

“Thanks,” he said, and began to eat.

Half of Sam’s mission was complete. She’d checked on him. He was still here. He wasn’t dead, and he hadn’t escaped. Now all she has to do was gather some information.

“You tried to kill my friend.” She tried not to put any tone into it – no anger or accusation. She wouldn’t get anywhere with that. She needed him to _want_ to tell his side of the story.

“It was a job,” said the assassin.

Sam nodded. “Do you still get paid if you don’t succeed?” she asked, because if she could keep a conversation going, she might learn something.

 “Yeah,” he said, munching on his bread and cheese. “I get half upfront.”

“If you get half upfront, why don’t you just take the money and run?”

“Well, that’d be the only job I’d ever get then, wouldn’t it.”

Sam was about to concede that yes, it would, when the assassin suddenly broke out into a grin, cheeky and almost shy, and said, “I almost did last night, though.”

“Was that part of a plan?” Sam asked, out of genuine curiosity, because the story Irene had told them had just sounded so _absurd_ – a talented assassin losing a quarry because a pretty boy had smiled at him.

The assassin laughed and shook his head. “This morning was the plan. Last night – well, money’s just money, and everyone deserves to have a bit of fun.”

“A bit of fun, eh?”

“Well, it was,” said the assassin, and laughed again.

“And your employer doesn’t mind?”

“If the job gets done a day late, it still gets done.”

Sam nodded, and very suddenly remembered that the job they were talking about was the murder of her friend. And then there were a lot of things she wanted to say, about killing people hardly being a _job_ , but she doubted she’d be the first person to give this man a moralistic rant, so she held her tongue.

“I’m sorry that it was your friend,” said the assassin.

“I guess I’ll see you for dinner,” said Sam.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for non-consensual science, and people locked in cages.

As soon as Claire opened her eyes, it was all too apparent to her what had happened. She was lying on her back on a cold surface. She wriggled a bit, and confirmed the suspicion that her wrists and ankles were bound. Something cold and heavy and metal was tight around her ribcage, holding her even more securely in place.

She and Ariel had always acknowledged that it would come to this, that one of them would turn against the other, and seize power for themselves.

She’d just always expected it to be the other way around.

With the little movement available to her, Claire turned her head to look around the room. Yes, she was in Ariel’s laboratory, the one in the very darkest depths of their basements. The one where all the surfaces were neat and shining white and never hinting at the blood that stained them. The one that was far enough below the surface that no-one had to hear the screams.

There was something else Claire noticed as she looked around the room. Everything she saw was crisp and clear and perfectly in focus. She squinted, and then blinked, and then squinted again. No, she was definitely not imagining it.

It looked like it wasn’t just for convenience that Ariel chosen to keep her in the lab. He’d been _experimenting_ on her. She craned her neck, trying to judge if eyesight was the only change he’d made. Knowing Ariel, it wouldn’t be. With Claire in his clutches, he would have taken full advantage of the situation to advance his scientific research. But before she could even try to fully take stock of what had happened to her – a task made difficult by her inability to sit up – she was distracted by the sound of the door opening.

“I thought you’d be awake by now,” said Ariel’s voice from somewhere behind her. Claire gritted her teeth, and fumed at the fact that she couldn’t turn and look at him. She had known that the confrontation between them would come eventually, but she would have rathered it didn’t happen while she was lying prone on a table, unable to even make eye contact.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Ariel continued amiably, as he wandered around the table and into view. He was dressed in the white jacket he always wore for experimentation.

“Hello,” Claire said, keeping her voice even. “If you like me tied up, Ariel, you could have just said so.”

“I hope you like the” –Ariel waved a hand in Claire’s general direction—“improvements I’ve made.”

“Maybe I would if I knew what they were.”

“All in good time, my dear, all in good time. I’ve got to take some notes before you get up and run off on me.” He pulled a small book from his pocket and began to wander slowly around Claire, examining her closely, prodding at her, checking her eyes with a magnifying glass.

“I suppose I will like them,” Claire mused aloud, “if they make it easier to kill you.”

Ariel let out a laugh. “Claire, you’re only restrained to prevent anything going wrong during the delicate stages of the experimentation process. I never meant you any harm. I only want to _improve_ you. With the progress I’d been making with the mice, and“  --he gestured towards a man caged against the wall of the room—“given the success of my last experiment—“

“Success?” Claire asked. The man was too skinny, looked in need of a hair-cut, and was curled in the far corner of his cage – whether asleep or unconscious, Claire didn’t know. He didn’t show any sign of scientific or magical enhancement. He hardly looked like a member of the master race that Ariel was bent on creating.

“Psychological,” Ariel answered. “The best go I’ve had yet at brainwashing, and a _very_ successful one, I might add. Near perfect. I’ll show you when he wakes up.”

Claire had a sudden flash of fear that she’d been brainwashed too, that her thoughts were not her own. But she quelled that quickly. If Ariel had gotten inside her head, he might have stopped her being so bent on _killing_ him for this. “But you left me to think for myself?” she asked. “I’ll be right here, then, “plotting your demise.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Ariel. “I’ve made a few…psychological changes. But I’ve always liked the way you think.”

In a swish of his white coat, he was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for amnesia, lots of fire, and people burning.

Claire didn’t waste a moment when the door closed. She may not have been able to physically break from her bonds, but she wasn’t the only person in this lab, and with a little bit of teamwork… “Hey, cage-boy.”

The prisoner didn’t stir.

“Wake up, cage-boy.”

Still nothing. Claire sighed, and let her head fall back onto the table. He was brainwashed, anyway, though Claire suspected that Ariel has been overstating his success. _She_ didn’t feel any different – except for the eyesight – no matter what changes he claimed to have made.

Perhaps his brainwashing could be tweaked to suit a different master.

When the prisoner stirred, and began to sit up, Claire was ready. “Cage-boy!” she hissed at him.

He blinked at her with sunken, red-rimmed eyes. “Huh?”

First, time for a test. “Stand up,” she ordered, in her most authoritarian voice.

“What?” he asked thickly.

“Stand up,” Claire said again.

The prisoner didn’t move. So, Ariel’s brainwashing was a little more complicated that just following orders. Well, kudos to him. She was going to have to try a little harder.

“What’s your name?” she asked sweetly.

The man blinked at her a few more times. “I don’t… I don’t remember.”

Well, that was interesting. “Ariel must have wiped your memory,” she said aloud.

“Yeah,” the prisoner said. “Ariel.”

“You know, the one in the white coat? Short?” The prisoner was nodding, so Claire kept talking. “He kidnaps people, and experiments on them. He locks them up in cages – like you – and he does horrible things to them. He’s very careful, though – he only uses the people that he doesn’t think will be missed.” She was watching the prisoner carefully for any kind of reaction. At that last sentence, she saw something. “Do you think you’ll be missed?” she asked.

The prisoner swallowed and frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“Do you have a family? A partner, maybe?”

“I don’t _remember_ ,” he said, more insistently.

“Do you want to?”

 

It took several days of cajoling – in between visits from Ariel – before she got something from the prisoner that was entirely not what she was expecting.

“Do you remember what colour the sky is?” she asked him one day, because Ariel’s prisoners always got strangely emotional about the sky. Claire had never understood it - she preferred to avoid the outdoors – but she hoped it would illicit a reaction.

“I’m trying,” said the prisoner, with growing frustration. It wasn’t the first question she’d asked him today. “But I don’t _know_.”

And then just like that, flames reared up around him. Within moments, the prisoner was screaming. Even from the other side of the room, Claire could feel the heat on her skin. There was nothing she could do, though. She couldn’t move to help him. She couldn’t even raise her hands to block out the screams. She listened – half fascinated, half horrified. Had he done that to himself? She remembered one of Ariel’s mice self-combusting once. Perhaps he’d been working on pyrokinesis.

Well, there was nothing she could do for the man in the cage. But Ariel had talked about Claire like she was the next in a line of experiments – first the mice, then this man, and now her. And if she wasn’t a demonstration of brainwashing, then perhaps…

Claire closed her eyes, balled her hands into fists, and concentrated on the heat of the flames. She imagined fire licking around the edges of her bonds, melting them, freeing her. It was  a long shot, but if Ariel _had_ tried to induce pyrokinesis in her, there must be a way to control it.

Claire didn’t realise that it was working until her wrists started to burn. She opened her eyes, and thought she could glimpse fires burning just where she wanted them – one by each hand, one of either side of where the metal bound her chest. It hurt – _gods_ did it hurt – but she took a deep breath and bit her tongue and waited it out, until she was sure she couldn’t endure it anymore, until her world has been reduced to fire and pain and—

 _Snap_. Something broke in the heat, and suddenly, Claire’s right wrist was free. _Snap_ again, and she could move both her feet, and then the weight was lifted off her chest, and she was scrambling into a sitting position, impatiently tugging at her left wrist, because now that she could see the fire blistering her flesh the pain was a whole lot more immediate. She finally dragged herself free, and frantically looked around the room. The path to the door was still clear. Without looking back, Claire broke into a run.


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m just going down to the tavern,” Jason said. He was standing in the doorway of his workshop – now kitted out as something of a guest bedroom. Lara perched in bird form on the floor, in a make-shift nest she’d manufactured out of cushions and blankets the moment he’d left her alone in there.

When he spoke, she shifted into human form.

“Can I come?”

“Yes?” Jason paused to consider whether this was the right response. He’s summoned the poor girl from another dimension, had no way of sending her home. She was _nesting_ on the floor of his workshop. He could hardly dash off to the tavern without her, even if it was for a revolutionary meeting. They could let her sit in. It wasn’t like she knew anyone in this dimension to betray them to, after all.

There was, however, the minor issue of explaining to his comrades just how he had come by this strange bird-woman.

But he’d said yes now, and Jason was true to his word, so – having looked through his laundry, and found some trousers and a dark blue tunic that wasn’t quite so wizardly as his robes (if you ignored the silver stars ringing the cuffs) – he led the way to the Corkman.

When they arrived, he found not Sam at the bar, but Laurencini. It was usually Sam who worked on nights that there were resistance meetings – keeping a very close eye on who entered and left the bar, making sure that nobody seemed to have cottoned on to what was going on in the back room. But there was no sign of Sam, and Laurencini was looking flustered, face a little red, tendrils of blonde hair escaping from her ponytail. It was apparent that she was trying to manage the whole busy tavern by herself.

“Sam’s working you hard today,” Jason commented, by way of greeting. “You won’t have any time to read that magic text I lent you! Where’s she got to?”

“Downstairs,” said Laurencini. “She’s in the cellar. Checking on the” –here she leaned across the bar and winked at Jason— “wine.”

“Uh…” Jason had obviously missed a lot in the few days he’d been at hiding at home, wondering what to do with Lara. “The wine?”

“The” –Laurencini winked again—“ _wine_.”

“Right.” Jason shook his head, and decided to leave that question for later. “This is Lara, by the way. Lara, this is Laurencini. I’ll just go through and have a word with Phoebe before I bring Lara in, yeah? I won’t be long.” He gave Lara a reassuring smile. She’d seemed to be incredibly resilient, but this was the first time he’d left her alone with strangers in this new dimension, and he wasn’t sure how she’d take it. Leaving her at the bar with Laurencini, he headed into the back room. He only hoped this would go well.

 

“Jason!” Irene was sitting in her usual chair, but that was about the only usual thing about her appearance. She was propped up with pillows and swaddled in blankets. Her usually rosy face was pale, and her eyes looked dull and tired.

Jason rushed to her side. “What _happened_?”

“Coldstream poisoning,” said Phoebe. “How was your date?”

Jason cringed. He definitely felt like he was being reprimanded. He opened his mouth to defend himself, and then realised something – “Wait, what date?”

“Um…” says Cass. “I think you went to a flatbread place?”

Jason frowned, and slowly shook his head. “No…? The last time I had flatbread was—“ And then it dawned on him. “Right,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. It wasn’t a date. It was—“

“She looked really nice,” Cass put in, as though she were trying to reassure him in the face of Phoebe’s disapproving look.

“No, no, no,” said Jason, flapping his hands in denial. “I summoned her. From another dimension. I thought she’d make a good spy.” All of them were looking at him, and none of them looked impressed . “She can turn into a bird!” Jason said desperately, hoping to dispel their judgement.

“Can she,” said Phoebe.

“Yes,” Jason said definitively. “Yes, she can. And she’s out at the bar with Lauren if any of you would like to meet her.”

“But you summoned her… what is it, three days ago now? And you only told us now?”

“She’s been… acclimatising,” Jason answered. It seemed quite plausible, now that he thought about it, that a bird shape-shifter was what he’d meant to summon all along. They didn’t ever have to know that he’d meant to cast a binding spell. “She’s out there now at the bar with Laurencini.”

“Okay…” Phoebe nodded, obviously considering the situation. “Well, maybe we should send someone out – you know, to suss out her political beliefs and—“

“If she’s from another dimension she won’t really have formed political beliefs, will she?” asked Cass.

Despite her weakened state, Irene’s eyes blazed as she turned towards her. “The oppression of the ruling classes transcends mere dimensional boundaries, Cassie! Any right-thinking person will be able to recognise that this monarchy has no legitimate claim to government.”

“Yes Irene,” said Cass, patting Irene’s hair soothingly. “Now shush, you need to rest.”

“I cannot rest until this nation is free!”

“Shush,” said Cass again, turning back towards Phoebe. Looking disgruntled, Irene picked up a quill, and continued to work on the pamphlet she had been writing when Jason entered.

“Anyhow,” Phoebe said to Jason, ignoring Irene’s outburst, “You’ve been living with her for three days, Jason. What would you say her political leanings are?”

“I dunno, actually,” said Jason. “She’s mostly been a bird. And when she isn’t she’s been reading some of my books. We have really similar taste, so—“

 “So does she want to overthrow the monarchy?” Irene interrupted impatiently.

“Oh, right,” said Jason. He was usually a much more focussed revolutionary than this. He didn’t know what had come over him. He sat down and summoned himself a drink.

“Okay,” said Phoebe. “Good work on the summoning.” She looked down at the drink that had just appeared in his hand. “The bird-person. Not the alcohol. Though I wouldn’t mind one.” Nodding in thanks when Jason passed her a rapidly-filling glass, she continued, “I think it might be someone else’s turn to have a chat with her. We don’t want to scare her, but we need someone who can get her talking about politics, while looking non-threatening.”

“Hello.” Lauren looked up from the political demands made by the Guild of Seamstresses, which she had been reading over to add to a petition they were preparing. She smiled her sweetest smile at Phoebe, big hazel eyes crinkling adorably. “I can talk about politics.”

“Good,” said Phoebe. “Go and meet this Lara.”


	10. Chapter 10

“So this King Anton is in charge,” said Lara slowly, “because his father was in charge, yeah?”

“That’s right,” said Lauren. “He’s the king, because he’s the oldest male descendent of the last king.”

“What about female descendants?”

“Women don’t get a say in politics,” Lauren answered.

Lara frowned, took this on board, and continued. “And he… _owns_ the land? So you have to give him food.” Back in Caloundra, in her home dimension, there was no such complex organisation of society. As birds, they simply foraged for what they needed.

“That’s right,” said Lauren, nodding. “Everyone has to pay taxes to the crown.”

“All right.” Lara nodded. She thought she was getting her head around this. “And then he uses the food and the … the money? … that you give him, to look after the people.”

Lauren let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “In theory, he’s supposed to. But he doesn’t. There are people starving while the aristocracy sit in their huge fancy castle and eat our food.”

Lara nodded again. “So why do you keep giving him all this food and money?”

“Not paying your taxes is a capital offence,” Lauren explained.

“Irene’s gotten away with it for years,” Laurencini whispered.

“Irene almost got _assassinated_ the other day,” Lauren hissed, her voice low.

Lara looked around the crowded room, and wondered what sort of horrible place this was, where people were scared just to voice their opinions, where you could be killed for not giving away what little food you had to some sort of ‘king’. “Is she alright?” Lara asked. She’d never met this Irene, but she was worried all the same. Even if Jason _had_ summoned her from her home, he and his friends seemed to be fighting for a very important cause.

Lauren and Laurencini exchanged a look. “Why don’t you come through and meet her?” asked Lauren, and Lara followed.

 

“What exactly is the plan?” the assassin asked. Sam had had a long argument with Phoebe, and had persuaded her that friendly conversation was going to be more effective than any of Phoebe’s interrogation techniques. So here she was, having her third consecutive dinner with the assassin. His name was Paul.

Sam frowned. “What plan?” He’d better not be referring to plans the resistance had been making recently. The city-wide strike they were planning would hardly remain secret for long, but at the moment, they were keeping things quiet. Paul couldn’t have heard anything from down in the cellar, could he? It was almost soundproof down here – the chatter of customers faded to a mere murmur.

“With me. Tied up in your cellar.”

“Oh. That plan.” Sam tried not to let the relief show on her face. “I don’t know. I thought I’d keep you down here.”

“Permanently?”

“It’s always nice to have someone to talk to when things get quiet upstairs.”

Paul frowned at her, clearly unimpressed. “That’s hardly a healthy way to socialise.” Sam smiled sweetly. “And I’ve still got half my pay to collect,” Paul added.

“Half your pay?” Paul was looking at her as though he’d said something very serious indeed.  “Oh, for Irene. No no no, she’s fine.”

“That was coldstream juice on my darts,” said Paul. “How can she be fine? What kind of powerful wizards do you have on your side?”

 “We have our ways,” she told Paul enigmatically. “So if you’ve got not money to collect, you’ve got no reason to leave here.”

“Rickets?”

“Maybe I’ll let you up into the courtyard to exercise some time.”

Paul frowned at her. “I’m serious, though,” he said. “Whatever you want me to do before you’ll let me out of here, I’m perfectly happy to do it. I’m not gratuitously evil. I respect what you guys do. I don’t care for the monarchy any more than the next person. I just got offered a job, that’s all.”

“That dart in Irene’s neck didn’t look like _respect_ ,” Sam retorted.

“Work’s work. And it’s pretty scarce.”

“People aren’t lining up for commissioned murders? Well then, how much do I have to pay you to assassinate the king?”

“A lot,” said Paul. “An awful lot. More than this tavern is worth.”

“Your freedom?”

“That’s a payment you’d have to give up front. Do you think once I’m free I’m going to risk sneaking into the castle to stab the king in his sleep?”

“Fair point. Okay – answer me some questions, and I’ll let you go.”

“Sounds good,” said Paul. “Ask away.”

“Who hired you?”

“A hooded man in a dark alleyway. It’s not a transparent industry.”

“Then how will you find him to collect the second half of your pay?”

“I’ll go back to the bar we met behind. He’ll be there, waiting. But I can’t collect the second half of my pay – you just told me she’s not dead.”

“But they don’t know that yet.”

“You want me to lead you back to my employer?”

“Yep.”

“In exchange for my freedom?”

Sam nodded.

“Seems fair.” He held out his bound wrists. “Untie me.”


	11. Chapter 11

When Sam brought Paul up out of the cellar and into the back room, she was met by a commotion, and a very unusual looking purple parrot.

“Hello, this doesn’t look like interrogation!” “Um…?” “What are you doing untying him?” “Um… Are you sure it’s all right… I don’t think you should…” “Sam, what are you doing?” “So _this_ is the assassin.” “ _Squawk!_ ”

Sam held up both hands in defence, and then realised very quickly that letting go of the prisoner hadn’t exactly appeased them. “It’s fine,” she said. “Let me explain.”

“He tried to _kill_ her, Sam.”

“Sam, I don’t think this is fair on Irene.”

“ _Squawk_.”

“He’s not going to hurt anyone! Calm down.” She should have left him in the cellar while she dealt with them, but she didn’t expected a more enthusiastic reaction when she brought up news of a successful interrogation of sorts. “He’s going to help us.”

“He tried to—“

“I know he tried to kill Irene,” Sam said. “Hear me out.”

“It’s fine,” said Irene to the others, to Sam’s relief. “Look, why don’t we tie his hands again, and you’ll all feel much better.”

Sam nodded, and bound the man’s hands with the unbreakable rope. “If we pretend Irene is dead for long enough for him to collect his payment, he’s willing to lead us to the man who paid him,” she explained. “Now, if Anton orchestrated this assassination, the man who paid Paul—“

“Paul?” Cass asked, though Sam couldn’t tell if it was out of genuine confusion, or horror that they were on first name terms.

“This is Paul,” said Sam.

“This is an _assassin_ ,” said Lauren, “And you’ve just led him into our meeting room, so now he’ll be able to identify us all when you let him go back to his master.”

“Two things,” said Paul. “First, I don’t have a master. I take a job, I get paid, I move on. I answer to no-one but myself. Second, I’d been casing this joint for a while before I—“

“Before the other night,” Sam filled in for him, before his choice of wording caused another round of out rage.

“--and so I recognise you all already.”

“ _Squawk_.”

“Right. As I was saying,” said Sam, “if Anton orchestrated this, the man who paid Paul is probably someone in his court, somebody relatively important among the aristocracy. So if we can get hold of _him_ while he’s loitering in a seedy bar – probably without any guards, to help him pass unnoticed – waiting for Paul, then we might be able to use him as a bargaining chip.”

“You just want another man to keep in your cellar,” said Laurencini. The parrot – where had that parrot _come_ from? Sam wondered – squawked again. Everyone else pondered Sam’s words in silence.

“All right,” said Phoebe. “All right, this could work. If we manage to kidnap an important member of the court, even if we don’t get leverage with Citizen Anton himself, we might gain leverage with somebody else who has some influence over Anton. Good thinking, Sam.”

“I don’t like it,” said Lauren. “He knows who we all are, and you’re letting him wander straight back to those bastards at court, just for the chance that we _might_ get hold of some unspecified person who _might_ have some kind of leverage. It’s not worth the risk.”

“After next week’s strike,” said Irene, “everyone will know who we are anyway.”

“And if they find out who we are before that, all our hard work goes undone,” Lauren countered. “We could all be locked up before the people even get out onto the streets. If nothing comes of all this because we’re not there to bring about the revolution—“

“Then would it truly have been a revolution? Is it really a revolution if the people will not  rise on their own, Lauren? They have to be ready, because we are _always_ at risk of capture, and we are always at risk of death, and the revolution must _go on without us_. For a man inside the court, for a chance not just to affect what goes on outside the castle walls – because the people outside _will rise_ , Lauren – but to change the minds of those who stand within the walls, I will take this risk.”

“I agree with Irene,” said Sam, because the number of disillusioned people she served each day who worked too many hours for too little pay lost to too much tax was too high for her to believe the people could not uphold a revolution on their own.

“So do I,” said Phoebe. “If we get everything in place for this strike before Paul acts, then everything should be fine.”

Lauren nodded. “So long as we work really hard on this strike, and make sure we all have safe houses to go to if anything goes wrong. If we must.”

“Well then,” said Irene, “all those in favour?”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“ _Squawk_.”

“Where did we _get_ that bird?”


	12. Chapter 12

Lara puffed out her feathers, and shook herself, a cloud of black dust settling on the table around her. “No, Lara,” said Jason. “You’d got to leave the soot _on_. You’re too purple to be a spy otherwise.”

Lara squawked unhappily, and transformed back into human form, sitting on the table, smudged from head to toe in soot. “There must be a nicer way to do this.”

“You can’t be purple,” said Sam. “It’s too obvious.”

“We’re really sorry,” Lauren added. “It’s really good of you to do this for us, and we’re sorry we’re making it more uncomfortable for you, but there’s no other way.”

“It’s not just for you,” Lara answered, “it’s for your whole _dimension_." She still couldn’t believe they lived under such a horrible and unfair ‘system of government’, as they called it.

“I told you revolution transcended dimensions,” Irene muttered to Cass.

“Shush.”

“It’s fine,” said Lara to Lauren, although she did hate the feeling of the soot all over her feathers. “If this is what we have to do, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much,” said Phoebe. The others nodded in agreement. “Are you ready?”

Lara nodded, and transformed back, resisting the temptation to shake out her feathers. “She’ll just need a little more soot over here,” said Jason. Sam took a handful and carefully spread it onto Lara’s feathers.

“ _Okay_ ,” Lara squawked, although she didn’t think the others could understand her. “ _I’m ready_.”

 

The resistance stood and watched as the black speck that was Lara disappeared into the sky. “Good on her,” said Cass.

“Especially considering she’s not even from this dimension,” Sam agreed.

“She has more in common with the oppressed classes of this dimension that she does with the ruling classes of her own,” Irene put in.

“I don’t think her dimension _has_ oppressed classes,” Laurencini pointed out. “It sounds like some kind of collective utopia.”

“Yeah,” said Jason. “I feel really bad for summoning her here.”

Sam turned and looked at him quizzically. “Wasn’t that always the plan?”

“I mean, yeah,” Jason said hurriedly. He’d forgotten what parts of this story he hadn’t told them. “But I didn’t realise she’d be so intelligent, or that—“

“What were you expecting?”

“Just like, a bird. That could talk.”

“And you got a pretty girl,” said Lauren. “Plans have gone a lot worse.”

“I just feel really bad,” said Jason. “To be honest – well, when I thought she was just going to be a bird, I was going to put a binding spell on her—“

“Wait, you didn’t, did you?” Lauren looked horrified.

“No, of course I didn’t.”

“Your Academy really forgot to teach you ethics, didn’t they,” said Irene.

“But I didn’t end up binding her, and—well I haven’t told her, and—“

“Are you looking for advice about girls, Jason?” asked Laurencini. “I mean ‘I almost bound her to be my slave to serve the revolution but now we’re dating’ isn’t—“

“We’re not dating. I didn’t put a binding spell on her. I just feel  bad, that’s all. To be honest, if I could, I’d send her home. But dismissal spells are so hard…”

“What about binding spells?” Laurencini asked.

“What about them?”

“Are they hard?”

Jason shook his head. “They’re much easier.

“Good. Because I’ve been thinking – you know this man at court who Paul is going to lead us to tomorrow? What exactly is the plan?”

“Was the plan to kidnap him?” Cass asked. “Kidnap him, and blackmail his family?”

“ _If_ his family’s at court,” Lauren put in. It was obvious she still wasn’t happy with the idea.

“Well,” said Laurencini, “What if we put a binding spell on him instead? What if we had genuine control over someone at court? Someone in Citizen Anton’s inner circle.”

“That’s unethical!” said Jason. “Even the Academy taught me you can’t put binding spells on people.”

“But you can on birds that can talk?” Lauren verified.

“They’re very anthrocentric,” Jason said. “It’s one of the big problems with the Academy.”

“But if you compare the number of people suffering under this government with the one man – a man who is _benefiting_ from this oppression – losing his free-will for maybe a few days, what’s really unethical?” Irene asked.

Jason nodded. “There’d be no books on it or anything. You know, you need different binding spells for different types of creatures.”

“There’d have to be some in the restricted section of the Academy library, wouldn’t there?” Cass asked.

“Yeah,” said Jason. “But we can’t get in to the restricted section”

“I know a wizard who might be able to get us in,” said Cass. “And he’s really good at dismissal spells.”


	13. Chapter 13

This first mission was almost a practice. They wanted her inside the castle, watching and reporting back on how the king and his court were reacting during the strike later on this week, so it was important for her to have a knowledge of the layout of the place beforehand. Any information she discovered would be a bonus.

Finding the castle wasn’t hard. They hadn’t even needed to give her directions. It _loomed_ about the city, hulking on the highest point and looking down on them all in a way Lara had already heard Irene make more than one metaphor about. But now Lara was looking down on it, laid out in front of her like a tiny model. She could see soldiers training in the courtyard – spears flashing as they marched in neat orderly lines, in neat orderly squares, around and around. What a strange world this was.

She swooped down, and lands on one of the parapets. _Citizen Anton will be holding court in the Great Hall_ , Phoebe had told her. _Try to follow him when he leaves_.

It wasn’t hard to find the Great Hall. A crowd stood around the door, a haphazard sort of line stretching back around the edge of the courtyard, huddled masses instinctively cowering away from the sharpened spears. Lara swooped down, and hopped between people’s legs, past heavy boots that were more mud than leather, past scraps of ragged cloth tied skinny ankles, past bare feet, blackened with walking, blue from cold. She wove her way between small children and even animals, until she found herself in the hall. The rafters at the ceiling were exposed, and she settled herself on one of them, looking down on the proceedings below her.

The king – _citizen_ , as Jason and his friends always called him, and _tyrant_ – was seated at the far end of the hall, on an enormous, carved throne that dwarfed both him and the two tall, muscular guards that stood on either side of him. Men in rich robes and velvet tunics surrounded him, further back women in silken gowns and lace fanned themselves while they watched the court proceedings.

The girl kneeling in front of the throne had no such trappings. She was dressed in a simple, cotton dress, ragged at the edges. Lara fluffed her feathers in sympathy. The poor thing must be cold. Her long dark hair was spread out across her back, like she was hoping it would keep her warm.

“What are you petitioning for?” the king asked her. “I suppose somebody’s stolen your sheep.”

The girl shook her head. “No, your majesty. It’s my sister, actually.”

“Somebody’s stolen your sister?”

“Yes,” she said, and then immediately shook her head. “No. Your majesty. I don’t know. She came to the city to look for work, months and months ago. And she used to write letters, every week. But then she just stopped.”

The king kept looking at her, and didn’t respond. “And?” he said, when she remained silent.

“And… well, without the money she was sending home, we won’t have anything left to eat.” The girl did look underfed, Lara noticed.

“And you want me to—“

“She was working in the castle. For the castle. Building. And she’d finished her job, she said, but…”

One of the men around the king stepped forward. He was thin and pale, of all the king’s men dressed in the simplest, least ostentatious clothing. “What was her name?” he asked. “I’m sorry,” he quickly corrected himself. “Is. Yes. What is her name?”

“Gabrielle,” the girl said.

Another of the men, wearing in a short jacket patterned with every colour of the rainbow, stepped forward, and whispered something in the king’s ear. The king nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve never heard of her. You’ll have to go back home.”

“But we have no money,” the girl protested. “She was working here. If she doesn’t come back, we’ll starve. You must have heard of her! She was in charge of—“

The king glanced to rainbow-clad man.  The man looked back with ice-cold eyes. “Guards,” said the king. “Take her away.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” the girl cried. “I just want my sister back!” Lara watched in horror as the guards marched forward, seized her by the arms and dragged her from the hall.

The king looked the to man in the rainbow coat and nodded , as though this were a job well done.

Her feathers were trembling, Lara flew from the hall.


	14. Chapter 14

Jason had instructed Sam to tell Lara where he and Cass had gone should she return before they did. They had left the tavern separately, to ensure nobody suspected they had just attended a meeting together. Paul, the assassin, was safely inside under Sam and Irene’s watchful eyes. So really, Jason had no excuse for feeling so worried as he and Cass headed into the Student Quarter, through the Academy’s impressively imposing gates, and across the campus to the library. But his levels of stress grew as he mounted the library stairs, until he felt absolutely  sure he was about to have to hole himself up in there for three days and churn out five rolls of parchment of the properties of different polygrams when used in magic circles.

“Shouldn’t we see this wizard you know first?” Jason asked, as they passed through the library doors. He breathed in the familiar chilly, musty air, and reminded himself that he would never have an essay due ever again. “He’ll have to unlock the Restricted Section for us, won’t he?”

“Oh no,” said Cass. “He works down there.”

“You mean Professor Hamish?” Jason remembered the librarian from when he had been at the Academy. He had watched Jason closely as he leafed through books, even more so when he borrowed them. Jason had always had the lingering feeling that if he didn’t return a book, the librarian would appear at his door one day, demanding its return. That, and any attempts at friendly interaction with him had always ended in the librarian making an obscure pun and walking away.

It wasn’t that Professor Hamish was unkind or unwelcoming in any way, but Jason could hardly imagine him striking up a friendship with a young, bubbly witch such as Cass. Despite being young for a professor, Professor Hamish had always given the impression of being the sort of fusty elitist academic that used words like ‘hedgewitch’ as insults, and liked to speak in dead languages.

“Yeah,” said Cass dismissively, and began her descent of the spiral staircase to the basement, where the Restricted books were housed.

Professor Hamish was sitting at his desk in the basement, behind which the door to the Restricted Section lay. He was dressed in the old robes he had always worn when not at official Academy functions – they may have once been a deep blue, but they were faded unevenly now,  fraying at the cuffs and patched at the elbows. His desk was covered in books, and paper, and more tea-cups than any man had a right to own, let alone drink from around such rare tomes.

He didn’t look up when they came in. Jason looked at Cass, and then coughed politely.

“I just have to finish this page,” Professor Hamish informed them, still without meeting their eyes.

When he did look up, to Jason surprise, the Professor’s face broke into a wide smile. “Hello!” he said to Cass, and then, to Jason’s ever greater surprise, stepped out from behind the desk, hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Hello,” said Cass. “This is Jason. I’ve brought him about looking at some books on binding spells.”

Professor Hamish regarded Jason for several seconds, before saying, “I remember you. You were always in here at midnight the night before your work was due. I guess you could say the fact that you never studied until the last minute is the reason you need re _binding_ about binding spells now.”

Jason could only nod in agreement to that. “I’m looking for stuff you might have in the Restricted Section.” He paused, and ran a hand through his hair. Cass gave him an encouraging smile. “On binding people.”

“Who do you want to bind?”

Jason looked at Cass for some sort of cue as to how much they could tell Professor Hamish about their plans.

Cass nodded. “It’s fine,” she said. “You can tell him.”

“Hopefully one of the high-up men at court.”

“Good,” said the Professor. “Come through, come through.”

“Is that it, Professor?” Jason asked. He’d expected all kind of objections from the usually crotchety professor.

“Yes,” said the Professor, as he unlocked the heavy door that guarded the Restricted Section, and then began chanting under his breath to disable the protection spells. When he was done, he added, “When I’m old I want to be able to tell my descendants that I helped with a revolution.”

 

Jason emerged several hours later, coated in a fine layer of dust and carrying a large sheaf of parchment, onto which he copied the spells he needed.

“How did you go?” Professor Hamish asked. He was still sitting at his desk writing whatever book he was working on at the moment, while Cass perched on one corner, flipping through a heavy tome.

“Good thanks, Professor,” said Jason.

“Good,” said the Professor. They stood in silence for a moment, while Jason wondered if it was up to him or Cass to bring up the dismissal spell they needed help with. “This conversation is over,” the Professor added, when he noticed Jason still in front of his desk.

“Actually, Professor,” Jason said, “Cass said you’re very good with dismissal spells.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve… got someone that I need to dismiss.”

“Have you accidentally summoned a demon?” the Professor asked suspiciously. “I always thought one of you over-confident students would do that.”

“I’m not actually a student anymore,” said Jason, “and she’s not a demon. But I’d like to send her home.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you summoned her,” said Professor Hamish.

“Be nice,” Cass reprimanded. Jason looked at her thoughtfully, and wondered just how long she’d been seeing the Academy’s notoriously anti-social librarian behind their backs.

“So you want me dismiss her?” Professor Hamish asked.

“If you could, Professor. If it’s not too much trouble. I think she’d like to go home.”

“Come on,” said Cass. “She’ll be at the Corkman in time for tonight’s meeting. Don’t you want to tell your descendants you used to meet in the back room of a tavern to plot to bring down the government?”

With a reluctant look at his books, Professor Hamish got to his feet and followed them out of the library.


	15. Chapter 15

When Jason, Cass and Professor Hamish arrived back in the back room of the Corkman, they found Lara had already returned, and was sitting at the table, drinking tea with Irene and looking very shaken. “I know the monarchy is horrible,” Irene was saying soothingly. “But that’s why we’re going to fix it.”

Lara nodded in silence and sipped her tea.

“Ah, Jason, Cass,” said Irene, getting to her feet to greet them, patting Lara soothingly on the shoulder as she did. She was still a little bit weak and shaky after her encounter with the coldstream berries, but nonetheless managed to look stern and commanding when she cast a suspicious look at Hamish and demanded, “Who’s this?”

“Professor Hamish, from the Academy,” said Jason. “He’s going to help us with the dismissal spell.”

Lara looked at up the mention of a dismissal spell, and Jason found himself suddenly overcome with an unexpected sadness. Despite the strange circumstances of their meeting, he’d grown very fond of her in the time she had been staying with him. He would miss her when she went home. Despite her nest preventing him from using his workshop to do any magical work, she had brightened his home. It had been nice to have someone to talk to when he pulled his head out of antique tomes to discover the world outside still existed, and was still a disaster.  She had even brought some flowers inside to place on the table while they ate their meals.

“Do we trust him?” Irene asked.

“Yes,” said Cass, with confidence.

“Alright then,” said Irene. “Go ahead and do your thing, Professor.”

Professor Hamish took a step towards Lara, and pulled a tin of chalk from his pocket, ready to begin drawing his magic circle. He was halfway through it when Lara said, “I don’t think I want to go home.”

Jason tried not to feel too pleased.

“Are you sure?” Cass asked.

“I’m sure,” Lara said, with more confidence now. “I saw the way this _king_ you have treats people today, and… well, I can’t just turn my back on a world where things are so fundamentally wrong and unjust.”

Irene pulled Lara into a tight hug. “Well said,” she said, “Well said.”

Jason found that he was grinning.

 

“Is everybody ready?” Phoebe asked, as they made the final preparations for their plan for the evening.

“Yes,” said Jason. He had a magic circle already drawn – all he needed to wait for was Phoebe and Cass to follow Paul to the bar where he was meeting his employer, and hopefully bring him safely back to the Corkman.

“As I’ll ever be,” said Cass, holding in one hand a coil of unbreakable rope, and in the other a long, hooded cloak that would hide her appearance as she tailed Paul through the streets.

Professor Hamish, waiting should he need to assist Jason with binding spell, looked at her with worry evident on his face. “Come back safely,” he said.

“I will,” Cass promised. Sweeping her cloak around her shoulders, she nodded to Phoebe, and together with Paul, headed for the door.

“You didn’t have to stay, you know,” Jason said to Lara, they waited for Cass, Phoebe and Paul to return.

“I wanted to,” Lara responded.

“It sounds so utopian where you’re from.”

“Utopian?” Lara asked. She pondered it for a moment. “I suppose it is. I told Irene about it – she called it ‘primitive communism’.” She said the words carefully, as though they were unfamiliar. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

Sitting in the corner – still unable to leave the tavern and reveal she was alive until Paul had met with his employer to collect his pay – Irene nodded. “That’s right.” She smiled proudly at Lara. “But we’ve past primitive communism – unfortunately – and we’re making our way through feudalism, and the rise of the middle classes , and any day now, the dictatorship of the proletariat can begin!” She looked down at the paper in front of her, where she was working of her speech for the coming strike. “Mm, dictatorship of the proletariat. I like that. I’ll use that one.”

“But now that I can go home any time I want,” Lara explained, “I may as well stay until things have gotten better here – I have a chance to help, and it seems like my shapeshifting is useful to you, so I’m happy to be here.”

“Thank you,” said Jason sincerely. “I suppose if you’re staying for as long as it takes to overthrow the monarchy—“

“Any day now,” Irene put in.

“—then I suppose I’ll have to find you somewhere a bit more permanent to sleep them my workshop floor.”

“I like my nest,” Lara said. “It’s a good nest.”

“Are you sure?” said Jason. “It’s just my workshop floor.”

“Are you trying to kick me off your workshop floor because you need to do work?”

“No!” Jason said hastily. “I mean, I do need to do work, but I’m happy you’re staying to see this through.”

Lara smiled at him, Jason smiled back, and in the corner of the room, Irene muttered, “ _Nothing to lose but your chains_ …. Perfect!”

 

The door burst open so hard it crashed against the wall. Phoebe rushed in, flung it shut behind her, and pushed a man into the centre of Jason’s circle, his hands and feet tied, a bag over his head. “Hurry up!” she ordered. “Do your spell!”

Jason leapt to his feet, lit his candles with shaking hands, and began to chant.

“Where’s Cass?” Hamish demanded.

Phoebe shook her head, gasping for breath. “They got her. He had guards. They were disguised as normal people in the bar so we didn’t know they were until it was too late. I got the man out, and Paul helped me get him here, but—“

“Where’s Paul then?” Irene asked.

“He scarpered as soon as it looked like I was safe. _He’s_ not going to risk getting caught for this revolution – he’s a bloody hired assassin! Are you done, Jason?”

Engrossed in his chanting, Jason didn’t respond.

“Come on,” Phoebe said, more to herself than to him. “Come on.”

“It’s okay, Phoebe,” said Sam, rubbing Phoebe’s back soothingly. “He’s here now, and he’s tied up. Nothing’s going to happen to him while Jason does his spell.”

Phoebe took a deep breath and steadied herself. “You’re right,” she said. “Somebody pour me a drink.”


	16. Chapter 16

Gabby awoke in darkness. The air was cold as she breathed it in, and smelled musty. Her cell was silent except for the scuttling of rats. Working without sight, she felt her way to the door of her cell, where she knew a bowl of weak, watery stew would be waiting for her. A hunk of stale bread was all she was given to eat it with. She finished it hungrily, and then leant her back against the cold stone wall. There was nothing down here to mark the time except her own waking and sleeping, and the routine of her daily bowl of watery stew and bread. Even that was always brought while she was asleep.

But today, something was different. Somewhere nearby, she could hear voices.

“She’s not awake yet,” said one. Ariel. Gabby had worked for him designing his new laboratory, before one day, she had woken up here.

“Question her as soon as she wakes up.”

“Yes, your majesty. Of course.” Ariel’s voice sounded  a little bored, and – if Gabby didn’t know better – she would have said a little mocking. But nobody in their right mind would mock the king to his face.

Having read the requirements Ariel had for his laboratory – huge, human-sized cages, tables with metal straps thick enough to hold down the strongest man, strange, walls thick enough to dull any sound – Gabby wasn’t sure he was in his right mind.

“And if she doesn’t give up any information,” the king continued, “you know what you have to do.”

“What’s that, your majesty?” Ariel asked innocently.

“Do you want me to spell it out? We’ve got an array of… instruments on offer. The iron maiden. The thumbscrews. The rack. There’s a starved rat waiting in a bucket just over there.” Gabby shuddered in revulsion at the sound of glee in the king’s voice.

“Your majesty,” said Ariel, “You and I both know that torture is proven not to work.”

“No harm in further – what do you like to call it? – _experimentation_.”

“It will only anger these revolutionaries further if she ever gets out to tell the tale.“

“Then ensure that she doesn’t,” the king responded. Gabby heard the sound of receding footsteps.

 

“Is there anyone there?” Cass heard the voice dimly, distantly, still half in a dream. “Is there someone else down here?”

She dragged her eyes open, although that did little good in the darkness. Her head was throbbing with the blow she had received from one of the royal guards, and her wrists were rubbed raw where a rope had bound them.

“Hello?”

She thought she had dreamed the voice, but there it was again. “Hello?” she whispered back into the darkness.

“Who are you?” It was a young woman’s voice, hoarse from lack of use.

Cass was immediately on her guard. She was in the king’s dungeons , of that much she was sure. “How do I know you haven’t been planted here to get information out of me?” she asked in return.

“I haven’t,” the woman responded immediately.

“How can I be sure?”

There was silence for a moment. “I don’t know.”

That was reassuring – a real plant would have an explanation ready. Unless that was part of the trick.

“What did they arrest you for?” the woman asked.

That much was safe enough to tell. “Treason. Sedition. Trying to kidnap a member of the court.” And succeeding, too, she hoped. The last she’d seen of Phoebe and Paul they had been disappearing down an alleyway, lugging Paul’s employer between them.

“Oh.”

“What sort of ‘oh’ is that?”

“I don’t even _know_ why I’m in here,” the woman answered. “One of the king’s advisors hired me to build some laboratories for him. And then I woke up here.”

It was Cass’ turn to “Oh.” She wanted to offer sympathy, but there wasn’t much good to be seen in this situation. “Laboratory?” she asked instead. That was a curious choice of word. Most magicians called their workshops just that, workshops, and “’Kitchen’ usually works perfectly well for me to cook my spells.”

“Are you a witch?”

“Yes.” There was no point hiding that. They’d obviously searched her while she was unconscious, and most of the myriad concoctions she carried on her person for emergencies  - from basic healing poultices to powerful explosives – were gone.

“Can you get us out of here? With magic?”

There were a few hiding places sewn into her clothing that they hadn’t discovered. Cass wasn’t quite sure she could trust this woman, but the situation right now could get much worse. “Yes,” she said. “I think I can.”


	17. Chapter 17

Jason stepped back from his binding circle for a moment, getting his breath back. All that continuous chanting was exhausting.

“Are you done?” asked Phoebe, getting to her feet.

Professor Hamish let out a humourless laugh. “Halfway there.”

“Just having a rest,” Jason said.

“We don’t have time for rests.”

“All right, I’m on it.” With a little bit of a dramatic flourish, Jason reached out and pulled the bag off the man’s head. A pair of blue eyes blinked up at him, not quite focussed.

Professor Hamish laughed again, more warmly, although it was plain that anxiety for Cass’ safety still occupied much of his mind. “Sir Nicholas, master of coin. Well _done_ , Phoebe.”

“Sir Nicholas,” said Jason. He hadn’t had a hand in the capture, but he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself all the same, having one of the most important officials in the realm at his command. “Stand up.”

The man got to his feet, a little unsteadily.

“Turn around.”

He did so.

“Jump thrice on the spot and quack like a duck,” said Professor Hamish, just to be sure.

Sir Nicholas, master of coin, member of the king’s innermost circle, jumped thrice on the spot and quacked like a duck.

“Well, I think that settles it,” said Jason. “He’s all yours, Phoebe.”

Phoebe regarded the man in front of her, and then said, slowly and carefully. “Go back to the king’s court. Tell no one of what transpired here. Tell them that you were almost captured, but you successfully escaped. You didn’t get a good look at any of our faces. Tomorrow, the king will receive a list of demands from the people. Do everything you can to persuade him to agree to these demands.”

Phoebe paused for a moment, and looked to Irene. Irene nodded.

“If you fail,” Phoebe continued, “and the king will not agree to the demands, and instead should turn his army against his people in violence” –she took a deep breath—“kill him. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” said Sir Nicholas.

Phoebe nodded at Jason. “Release him.”


	18. Chapter 18

Irene pulled on heavy boots for not getting her feet trampled in crowds, and purple tights with a patchwork tunic. She had to make sure she stood out, after all, if she was going to address the crowds. The myriad of colours she donned should achieve just that.

It was a chilly day, and Irene would need a cloak. She examined the contents of her wardrobe. Anton’s court thought she was dead, and she was about to lead a city-wide strike that would shake their power to the very foundations. She had to make a dramatic entrance.

She would wear red.

The cloak she wrapped around her shoulders was the colour of the blood of all the innocents who had died under the king’s rule – the colour of the red dawn that would herald its end. She secured it with a pin in the shape of a llama – an honest working animal, for the working classes.

Strapping a her sword belt on her hips, Irene regarded her reflection in the window. Yes, she was ready to bring down a government.

 

“I’m all for this revolution,” said Professor Hamish to Sam, as they joined the crowds already thronging all the streets, “but what about Cass?” He didn’t look all for this revolution – he looked oddly out of place in his patched blue robes, carrying his wizard’s staff and walking among the workers clad in ordinary shirts and trousers. The expression of his face hovered could best be described as ‘pleased terror’.

From what Jason had told her of this strange academic who never left his books unless it was to buy himself a coffee, Sam knew this was hardly the sort of situation he was comfortable with. She admired his bravery. Cass had good taste. “Don’t worry,” she told the Professor. “She’ll be in safe hands very soon.”

“How so?”

“This isn’t just a strike. We’re going to storm the prison.”

 

Lara – covered once again in a layer of soot to hide her purple plumage – wheeled high above the crowds, watching as they came from every corner of the city to converge on the main street, streaming towards the castle.

Inside the gates, she could see soldiers with ranks already formed, waiting for an order. She tried to count them, but  time she did she came up with a bigger number. They were still amassing, emerging from the barracks that hulked inside the wall at the back of the castle. How so many soldiers managed to live in that building she had no idea. Why so many men were willing to work for such an evil tyrant was another question altogether.

They were still outnumbered by the workers outside, but compared to the soldiers, the workers were an unarmed rabble.

Lara turned to fly back and report what numbers she could glean to Jason.

She only hoped that the soldiers could be made to understand that they were wrong.

 

Claire leapt lightly across the rooftops, her feet barely making a sound on the thatch and tiles as she moved across the city. She could hear the sounds of the crowd from the streets below, although she couldn’t yet see them. She continued running, jumping the gaps between buildings as easily as she would walk along the ground. She hadn’t forgiven Ariel – far from it – but she could appreciate the benefits of his enhancements. She rarely felt tired, the burns she had received fleeing from the laboratory had all but healed, leaving only light scarring behind,  and she could move as swiftly as the wind.

None of that justified betraying their partnership. They had had _plans_. Plans to run this nation together, plans for absolute power, and total freedom to do as they pleased. And when those plans were in place, Claire had had plans to do away with Ariel, for the people to bow to her alone.

It was not that she didn’t forgive Ariel, so much that she didn’t forgive herself for not acting first.

Crouching behind a chimney pot, Claire watch the crowds make their way to the castle gates. The gates were strong, but she suspected that thousands of angry, downtrodden workers may just be stronger. Once they got inside, there would be no mercy.

Claire got to her feet, and continued to make her way across the rooftops.

Ariel was inside that castle somewhere. And there was no way she was letting them get to him before she did.


	19. Chapter 19

Jaffy  Matt crouched on the castle walls, peering between the arrow loops at the revolution below. The crowd was a sea of faded colours – these weren’t the sort of people who could afford the rich dyes worn at court – punctuated here and there with scraps and kerchiefs and flags of red. The red hadn’t been there when he’d come up here earlier this morning – it hadn’t been until the leader had appeared, red cloak swirling over a patchwork tunic – that the people had taken the colour for their own, but now he could see it everywhere. They wore what scraps they had as scarves and armbands, they tied them to poles, and waved them as flags.

“ _Down with the monarchy! Down with the king!_ ” they chanted, as the marched through the streets.

The leader had the biggest flag of them all. She had clambered up onto an overturned cart, and she stood there, her red cloak blowing in the wind, long hair streaming out behind her.

She was younger than Jaffy Matt had expected. She looked barely older than him, and he himself had only started competing in the jousting tournaments this year. But even from here, he could tell that what she lacked in age, she made up for in revolutionary zeal. Around her, silence began to fall.

“ _Down with the monarchy!_ ” a few voices continued. “ _Down with the king!_ ” a lone voice added. The others all waited, looking to their leader to speak. The silence was eerie. Jaffy Matt felt a thrill of excitement as he watched all those people down there, all poised and ready to act. Perhaps he should be scared – he was a squire, after all, just one step away from being a knight, and if knights didn’t represent the government that they sought to topple -  swaggering through the streets with their swords, shoving the ordinary people into the gutters to clear the way before them – then Jaffy Matt didn’t know who did.

And yet here he was, silently cheering the crowds on all the same. There was something about them that he couldn’t help but admire.

“People of Melbourne,” Irene said into the silence. Her voice was so quiet that Jaffy Matt had to strain to hear it. “Our time has come. Our time has come to throw off the shackles of this monarchy, to stand proud and free at last. For too long people have been dying. For too long, people have been starving while the aristocracy feast in their castles and their palaces. No more. Today this ends. Today this tyrant will be overthrown. Today we become a free people. This _king_ , as he calls himself, has no more right to rule than you or I. Did you vote for him? I did not. So his father ruled before him. By what right? And his father before that. _By what right_? And before that, his father, and before that his, and before that, a man who was perhaps a little stronger, or a little bigger, or a little luckier than the man beside him beat that man into submission and said to him, “Now I am your king?” And I say to you - _by what right_? The right to govern – and I say govern, I do not say _rule_ – is a right that must be given by the people, not out of fear, but out of respect. Do you respect a man who rules by fear and violence? Do you respect a man who watches his people starve? Do you give this man the right to rule? Or do you say to this man, “It has been too long. I will no longer toil while you rest, I will no longer starve while you feast, I will no longer _kneel_ while you _rule_. No. No, now I will _fight_ , until the last breath has been pushed from my body, and the people are free. It has been too long. _Our time has come_.”

A deafening roar rose from the streets.

Jaffy Matt wasn’t even surprised to find that he was cheering too.

 

“Your majesty.” The guard rushed into the council room, and got down on one knee before the king. “The people are at the gates. They have a petition they want you to read.”

King Anton sigh theatrically. “What does it say?” The guard handed it over, and he unfurled it, skimming its contents. “The people demand a vote, they demand a parliament, democratic representation, a regulated minimum wage, they want to only have to work eight hours a day – _eight_ _hours_! they’d never get anything done – and they want… What’s this? They want an end to hereditary titles and ‘for all people to be recognised as citizens regardless of parentage or of gender, and to be treated equally in the eyes of the law’. Where do they get these ideas? Oh, and a constitution, to ‘enshrine their rights’ and ‘make official this new form of government’. Well that’s quaint, isn’t it? Tell them no.” He scoffed, and under his breath muttered. “Eight hours. That would hardly give them time to get out of bed.”

“Your majesty.” Nicholas bowed to the king before he spoke. “The crowds are starving, and dangerous. Perhaps if you agreed to some of their demands—“

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Perhaps a parliament would be wise.” King Anton glared at Nicholas, and he added hastily. “Your majesty. Perhaps—“

“You might not be aware,” the king responded scathingly, “but this _democratic_ system of government they have in mind leaves no place for the role of a king.”

“Maybe the time for a king has—“

“Get out of my court before you regret whatever it is you’re about to say.”

Bowing obsequiously, Nicholas backed from the room. King Anton leaned back, put his feet up on the footstool in front of him, and turned to his remaining advisors, Ariel and Angus. “Any other news today? I’m thinking of going hunting tomorrow, so I’d like to get any court business out of the way.”

When neither of them responded – distracted, perhaps, but the sound of the angry crowd bashing on the gates – the king continued, “No Claire again today, Ariel? What’s become of her?”

Ariel resisted the temptation to fiddle uncomfortably with the hem of his multi-coloured jacket, and said to the king with the most casual face he could muster, “She’s been feeling a little unwell.” He quickly waved a hand to dismiss any concerns. “Nothing bad. Nothing serious. Just not quite up to dealing with all these angry crowds and grovelling peasants.”

The king sighed. “If only I were able to forgo my duties so easily,” he mused. “We’ll go hunting tomorrow,” he said again.

In the silence that followed, the chanting voices of the angry crowd drifted into the hall. “ _No taxation without representation! No taxation without representation!_ ”

“I suppose we’ll have to do something about that crowd,” the king said resignedly.

Angus, silent until now, step forward to join the conversation. “Have you considered agreeing to just a few of their demands. A minimum wage – something pretty low, you know. And maybe a parliament? You could write it up in a constitution, and write yourself in there to, with veto power, of course. Call it a ‘constitutional monarchy’. I’m sure they’d like that, and it would make you look good.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Ariel, as the king himself responded, “A constitutional monarchy? Do go on.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with having a king—“

“I should hope you don’t think so.”

“Of course not, your majesty. Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with having a king. It’s very useful, you know, having one person with absolute power to keep things running efficiently, overrule court infighting. Imagine what the country would be like if—How many people do they want in the parliament?”

The king scanned the document he was holding. “A hundred, apparently.”

“If a hundred people had to agree on everything. It would be ridiculous. But they could have a parliament, if they really wanted. And we – you – could keep an eye on who they elected, and overrule any decisions they made that you didn’t like. But it would appease them, and keep them away from the gates.”

“Do you really think overruling every decision they make is going to _appease_ them?” Ariel asked incredulously.

“Not every decision. Just anything that looks too… democratic.”

“True, true,” said Anton. “I like this idea. And we’ve got to do something about that crowd. A little bit of democracy – controlled democracy, mind you – could do some good. What colour do they wear, Matthew?”

“Red,” said the king’s squire, a little too quickly. “I, um… yes, I think the leader was wearing red.”

“Bring me a red cloak – I like that velvet one. I’ll go out on the walls and tell them how much I support their cause.

“Yes your majesty,” said the squire, and disappeared behind one of the tapestries.

“Right,” said the king. “Now about that hunting—“

 _Crash_. The doors of the hall burst open, heavy oak crashing against the stone walls. A guard stood in the doorway, panting. “Your majesty,” he said, and barely even finished bowing before, “They’ve broken down the outer gate!”

The king narrowed his eyes, a devious expression on his face. “Open fire,” he said.


	20. Chapter 20

Somewhere far off, Cass thought perhaps she could hear the sound of an angry crowd.

Yes, she could definitely hear it. it was getting closer, the general rumble punctuated now with screams. Cass flinched with every scream – her friends were up there. But perhaps at least the crowd could serve as a distraction while she and Gabby  made their escape.

Cass didn’t have the pocket knife that she usually carried with her – some guard had probably taken it home to give as a gift to one of his children already – so tearing the hem of her dress took some effort. She winced as she did it – she _liked_ this dress, even if it was just a plain black one, best suited to sneaking through the streets late at night. But to worry about the fate of her dress now would be absurd, and so she ripped it all the same.

A small ceramic tube fell into her hand, stoppered at one end. She pulled it open very carefully with her teeth, and then said to Gabby, “You might want to stand back for this.”

In the darkness, she heard Gabby obediently shuffle to the other corner of the cell. Cass felt around for the point where one of the bars of the cell door fitted into the beam at its base. Carefully avoiding contact with her hands, she upended the contents of the tiny tube on the point where they joined, and the scrambled backwards.

The was silence for a moment. “Is it working?” Gabby whispered, but before Cass needed to give an answer, the first sparks began to fly. At the point where Cass had poured the mysterious powder, emerald sparks flew into the air like a tiny, fiery fountain. Green light flared up, bright enough to light the cell.

Taking advantage of the brightness, Cass glanced over at the corner of the cell, hoping to get a good look at her companion. She expected Gabby to be watching the sparks, unaware of Cass’ gaze, but instead, when Cass looked at the small, brown-haired woman, she saw her eyes wide and scanning her surroundings.

“I’ve—“ Gabby began to say, but Cass quickly cut her off.

“Shh…” she hissed. Louder than the ever-growing sound of the crowd, she could hear footsteps and shouting on the stairs.

“The people are making their way towards the prison!” someone shouted. “Secure the prisoners! Ensure the doors are well guarded!”

“So much for this plan,” Cass muttered, but Gabby’s eyes were still scanning the room.

“I’ve been here before,” she said. “And I know a way out.”

 

Kieran, royal wizard, stood in the castle courtyard, a continuous stream of arrows passing through his hands, being charmed with accuracy charms before being carried up to the archers on the walls. He didn’t really support the idea of shooting down the crowds – it would only make them angrier, after all, and one unfortunate thing about these peasants was that there were an awful lot of them, and the country wouldn’t actually function if you killed them all off. The thing to do, he believed, was to meet with their leader, perhaps even knight her, offer her a position on the king’s council, and tie her up so thoroughly in the political machinations of court that she would never get anything done.

And then, while he was at getting the things he wanted done, he might like to transport a bunch of these rabble-rouses out to found some new colonies – keep their torches and their pitchforks far from the castle. Let them help the realm to grow.

Unfortunately, Kieran hadn’t been in court that day – too busy charming extra weapons, should it come to this – and the king had given the order to open fire before he could suggest his plans. He only hoped his cousin, Sir Nicholas, would talk some sense into the king.

It wasn’t very heartening, then, when he saw the knight striding across the courtyard, dressed for battle in a chainmail tunic under a black outer-tunic decorated with a large white dog. He had an angry look on his face, and he was coming from the opposite direction to the hall where the king had been meeting with his advisors.

“He kicked me out of court!” Nic told Kieran, when he was within earshot, over the noise of the crowd. They were well back in the inner courtyard – the peasants hadn’t made it through the second gate just yet – but all the same, conversation was a little difficult.

“He kicked you out?”

“Yes! I was trying to explain to him that the time for monarchy might have passed, and that democracy has its benefits, and he threw me out!”

Kieran regarded Nic in impassive silence. “You were trying to tell him what, sorry?”

“They made a list of demands – they want a parliament, they want to get rid of the king, some rights for workers. It all sounded pretty good, and—“

“Nic,” said Kieran seriously. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine. I’m just angry that he kicked me out – and when the court was about to make a really important decision!”

Kieran frown. Something was definitely amiss here. “Stand still,” he ordered Nic. When his cousin obeyed, Kieran took his by the shoulders, and examined his eyes carefully. There were wizards who believed that you could always tell someone under a binding spell by looking in their eyes. They never quite specified what you would see there – some kind of dullness, something subtly off in the colour, in the gaze that stared back at you. Kieran didn’t have much time for those wizards, but it was better than nothing.

“What are you doing?” Nic asked suspiciously.

“What happened last night?”

Nic sighed. “I’ve told this story. You heard it in court this morning. I went to pay” –he dropped his voice—“Paul. It was an ambush. The guards captured one of the women involved, and Paul and the other tried to drag me away somewhere. I ran for it before they could. I waited until I was sure I’d lost them, and I came back to the castle.”

Kieran nodded, and then reached down to grab Nic’s wrist. “If you escaped,” he asked, “Where did you get the rope burn?”


	21. Chapter 21

The footsteps on the stairs were getting louder. Cass grabbed the metal bar in the door with both hands, and wrenched it out of its now-corroded socket, gritting her teeth at the horrible, scraping sound it made.

“The wall on the left,” Gabby said urgently, as they heard a key in the door. “End of the corridor. Quick!”

Cass hadn’t known until now how big the dungeon was – their cell, illuminated in the green light that still emanated from where she had poured her power – was about halfway down a long corridor, lined with cells on either side.

All of the cells were empty.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Cass started to say, but Gabby grabbed her by the hand, and started to run, dragging her to the far end of the corridor. Cass flung her cloak over the smouldering green light as she went.

The door opened behind them. Cass froze in her tracks. There were two armed guards at one end of the dungeon, and nothing but a thick stone wall at the other. They were trapped.

“Come _on_!” Gabby hissed, and dragged her forwards.

With nothing else to do, Cass obeyed. “Hold them off,” Gabby demanded, and turning her back on Cass, began to tap out a strange pattern on the stones of the wall.

Cass turned to face the corridor, and saw two guards coming toward her. They were heavily armed. They weren’t hurrying. There was nowhere for her to run.

Cass didn’t like to use the explosive powders she kept hidden in her dress, but it was for times like these that she carried them.

 

Kieran couldn’t break a binding spell without the right equipment, and the right materials. He hardly wanted to leave Sir Nicholas alone until he’d done it, but there was no chance of him managing to manhandle the knight into his workshop, and even less of any of the soldiers crowded into the courtyard obeying an order to do so.

“You’re under a binding spell,” Kieran told Nic, although like as not Nic already knew. “Stay right there. I’ll be back in a moment to fix it.”

“I’m not staying here!” Nic protested. “I’m going up on the walls to—“

“Suit yourself,” Kieran answered. There was no point arguing with a binding spell, and there wasn’t a minute to lose. Who knew what Nic might do when left to his own devices. “I’ll find you when I need you.”

Letting the quiver of arrows in his hands fall to the cobbled ground, Kieran rushed off towards his workshop.

Leaping out of the way of the falling arrows, a strange black parrot with a certain iridescent purple sheen to its plumage took to the air.

 

The king stood atop the castle walls. He could see the revolutionary leader below, at the head of that seething mass of people. They were in the outer courtyard now, some of them hand-to-hand with his own soldiers, swords clashing with pitchforks, chair-legs, makeshift clubs. Anton saw more than one person fighting a trained soldier with a rolling pin.

If it weren’t for sheer numbers, the rioting workers would have been lost long ago. Those at the front of the mob were being slaughtered, those further back picked off with arrows from above.

His squire had been true to his word. The people, where they could get hold of it, were clad in scraps and shades of red. How happy they would be when they saw that their king recognised their cause, and donned their colours.

Such a pity miscommunication had led his too-eager, bloodthirsty soldiers to open fire without their king’s orders.

How grateful the people would be when their kind, benevolent king called them off.


	22. Chapter 22

True to his word, Nic mounted the stairs towards the top of the wall. He could see the king up there already. He could hear the screams of the people dying in the square.

The king wore a red cloak. It fluttered in the wind, and Nic kept his eye on it. His mind was a haze, but he knew that that was his goal.

His persuasion had failed. He had opened his mouth, and words had stumbled out, and the king had dismissed him almost immediately.

But how was he supposed to form a strong, coherent argument when his mind was not his own? No, he had failed. But there was more to this mission. Words bounced around in his head – he couldn’t put his finger on where they had come from. Someone had spoken them to him last night, and in the confusion of his thoughts, he knew he must obey them.

_If you fail and the king will not agree to the demands, and instead should turn his army against his people in violence, kill him._

The king had not agreed to the demands. The people were dying in the streets, in the courtyard, in the very castle itself. There was only one thing left to do.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Nic drew his sword.

 

Kieran rushed back from his workshop, ebony wand in one hand, a bag of candles and sacrifices in the other. He hadn’t worked out quite yet how he was going to get Nic inside the magic circle, but he surely hoped he would think of something as he ran up the stairs to the top of the wall, taking them two at a time despite the tangle of his black robes around his ankles.

Sir Nicholas was ahead of him, sword already in his hand. The king stood some way from the top of the stairs, thankfully. Kieran might just have a chance of closing the gap between them before Nic  reached the king. His legs were burning, the heavy bag of candles slipping from his hand, but he sprinted all the same, sucking air into his lungs.

No. There was no chance he was going to make it. But he still had one trick up his sleeve.

From within the folds of his robe, Kieran pulled a tiny, cloth doll. It was almost formless, shaped more like a starfish than the human being it was supposed to represent. But it did have one thing – hair. Specifically, his cousin’s hair.

He had never thought he would need it, and dolls like this were never as good as having the person you were enchanting at the centre of your magic circle, but it would have to do.

All but throwing the doll down onto the wall in front of him, Kieran lit his candles, and began to his frantic chanting.

 

 “They’ve discovered the binding spell,” said a voice breathlessly behind Jason. He turned to see Lara, still covered in soot, and a little out of breath.

Jason grinned, relieved to see her unharmed

“I don’t know how quickly they can undo it,” Lara continued but they know that Sir Nicholas isn’t acting right.”

“Dammit,” Jason cursed, ducking to avoid an arrow flying towards them. He grabbed Lara, and pushed her behind him as a soldier came at them, spear in hand. With a few muttered words from Jason, and the soldier was flung backwards, landing on the ground several metres away, staring up in confusion.

Jason turned back to Lara. “Get yourself out of here,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect you to risk your life for us. And if they’ve discovered the binding spell, we haven’t even got anyone inside there to convince the king to stop— _Down!_ —stop bloody _shooting_ us. He held out a hand, and helped Lara back to her feet. He would feel terrible if anything happened to her. “I’m so sorry. So tell me, what else did you learn?”

The king appeared on the walls above them. Over his usual royal purple and gold, he had donned the red velvet cloak.

“I’ve got a clear shot on him!” Phoebe called. Not far away, Jason saw her loading her crossbow.

“He was going to offer you a constitutional monarchy!” Lara blurted out.

“Hardly looks like it,” Phoebe retorted as she raised her bow.

“The red cloak,” Lara continued desperately. “He’s wearing the cloak to show he supports us! I saw his squire fetching it for him, just before I followed Nic out of the hall. He was going to agree with us! _He_ wouldn’t have told them to shoot us. He’ll call them off!”

The king began to speak. A rock – perhaps from a slingshot – glanced off the wall just below him. The angry yelling of the crowd drowned out his voice. An arrow whizzed past his ear.

“If Phoebe gets a shot on him,” Jason said to Lara, “He’ll be dead for sure.”

“Nobody will call off the soldiers if the king dies!” Lara said in anguish.

Jason mightn’t have as much faith in people as Lara did, but she had a point – it was hardly made sense for the king to wear the red of the revolutionaries just as he was about to have them slaughtered. He pushed through the crowd towards Phoebe.

The king’s voice was barely audible, but it looked to Jason like he was trying to give orders to his army.  Beside him, his herald sounded a horn, long enough to get the attention of those standing below the walls.

“Soldiers!” the king commanded, “Hold your fire!”

A silence fell over the crowd. Soldiers and workers alike paused weapons raised, bows still drawn.

Jason felt Phoebe shift beside him. Her crossbow was still at the ready. “Don’t you dare,” he hissed.

“Don’t I dare _kill the king_?” Phoebe asked incredulously.

“People of Melbourne,” the king began, “This has been a tragic day for all of us.”

“He’s willing to agree to some of our terms,” Jason told Phoebe. “Give him a moment.”

“I am saddened by the loss of life before me,” the king continued, “and I hope that we can be reconciled to become one united people once more.”

“And then I can shoot him?” Phoebe asked.

“And then you can shoot him,” Jason assured her.

 

Sir Nicholas felt something _shift_ in his mind. He was standing atop the castle walls, sword in hand. The king stood in front of him, halfway through a speech peppered with words like  ‘tragedy’ and ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘I never wished harm on any of you’.

Sir Nicholas knew King Anton well enough to know that that was an out-and-out lie.

Screams drifted up from the street, almost distantly. The king may have called off his soldiers, but that hadn’t done anything for the people who were already, wounded, dying in the streets while their king prattled on above them.

Nic had never thought to question the monarchy before now. Until last night, he had willing done as his king ordered, had happily accepted his payments in land and gold and jewels and a seat on the king’s council. But with his mind his own once more, Nic couldn’t shake the image of desperate faces surrounding him in the back room of a tavern, of people willing to kill for their freedom, of people willing to _die_.

There was a sword in his hand. The king had his back to him.

 

Reluctantly, Phoebe lowered her bow.

“I have read your demands,” the king said, “And I have thought them over, and I am willing—“

The point of a sword appeared in the middle of his chest.

King Anton toppled forward, plunged from the wall, and splattered on the cobbles below.


	23. Chapter 23

It wasn’t easy getting hold of the body. There was a previously angry, now elated, and at least partially drunken, crowd out on the streets, celebrating the death of what even Ariel couldn’t deny had been an oppressive king.

He hoped they would be too distracted looting the castle to pay much attention to the king’s body, but of course, that wasn’t likely. Only so many people could loot a castle at one time – the guards having given up stopping them very quickly to join in the celebrations – and the rest, of course, were still out on the streets.

Thank god for all those secret tunnels he’d had that Gabrielle lady put in when she’d done the renovations on his laboratories. Having one that led straight from his lab out onto the streets, bypassing awkward things like castle guards, had always been convenient, but never more so than today.

Dodging the charred remains of the lower lab – he really needed to clean that up – Ariel pulled down on one of the sconces on the wall, and a section swung away. He descended a darkened staircase. He didn’t need any light. He’d made this trip many, many times, carrying all kinds of illegal items that he’d rather not have to explain.

He ran his hands along the walls, counting the openings before the one he would have to turn down. There on his left was the tunnel that lead to the king’s chambers. Further down, the gap under his right hand veered off to the dungeons, should he need to collect more experiment subjects.  One more tunnel – this one on the left, sloping steeply downwards, rarely used – and then he took a sharp right, and began to climb back towards ground level.

To Ariel’s great relief, the tunnel opened mere metres from where the king had fallen. To his greater relief, nobody had yet thought to dismember the body and parade the head on a pole around the streets. Carefully looking around – yes, nobody was paying any attention – and muttering the invisibility spell he had learnt before he left the Academy to pursue greater things, Ariel grabbed the body unceremoniously by its feet, and dragged it back down into the darkness.

Unfortunately for him, he’d never actually been very _good_ at magic before he left the Academy. His invisibility spells may work well enough to keep people from glancing his way while he carried out his nefarious deeds, but levitation had always been a bit beyond him.

He hoisted the body onto his shoulders. It would be a long walk back to the labs.


	24. Chapter 24

“Come back to the Corkman!” Sam grabbed Irene by the hand, and made to drag her through the crowd. “Free drinks for everyone!”

Irene allowed herself a smile, but shook her head. “Not yet, Sam. The king may be dead, but there’s still work to be done. Cass is down in those dungeons somewhere, and she’s far from the only one.”

“But free drinks!” Sam protested. “They’re looting the palace. They’ll let Cass out.”

Irene shook her head again. “If it weren’t for Sir Nicholas having done the killing, those guards would still be shooting at us. The moment someone in there gets their head together, it could be blood in the streets all over again. Go have a drink. I’ll see you at the pub later. With Cass.”

Sam nodded, and headed off into the crowd. “Make sure someone’s tending to the wounded!” Irene called after her, before drawing her sword once again and heading into the castle.

She found the entrance to the dungeons easily enough. Lara had explained the castle layout to her earlier, and the heavy oaken door which opened onto dark, dank, downward-spiralling steps could only really mean one thing.

The only odd thing was the door was already unlocked, and stood ajar.

Irene pushed it open, and pulling a witch-light that Cass had given her from her pocket, set off down the stairs.

“Right!” she heard a voice behind her as she did. It sounded military, commanding. “Soldiers! _Soldiers!_ Pull yourselves together men, this is not a party! Pull up! Form ranks! This castle is being invaded, and our job is to _defend it_!”

Irene ignored the shouting – the general had been at it for a while, and the soldiers had hardly looked like listening as she crossed the courtyard towards the dungeon. She continued down the stairs.

The dungeon was lined on both sides with cells. Empty cells. The only people in there were two soldiers, standing at the far end, one holding a lantern, the other tapping seemingly randomly on the wall in front of him.

Luckily for Irene, they both had their backs to her.

Sword at the ready, Irene approached the soldiers. Her friend may not be down here, but this was definitely a chance to do some questioning.

She took the first one down before he even saw he coming -  a nice, solid knock in the head with the hilt of her sword, and he crumpled to the ground. The second whirled, but Irene was ready and parried his thrust, knocking his sword harmlessly away from her body.

Unfortunately for Irene, the soldier who she’d thought she’d knocked out was protected by his helmet, and grabbed at her ankles. Irene was pulled to the ground, and the next thing she knew, the other soldier had a foot on her chest, and a sword at her throat.

“Hey,” said the one she’d knocked down. “Is this who I think it is?”

Irene felt the point of the sword dig into her neck. She resisted the temptation to swallow nervously. The other soldier, on his feet now, flipped the end of her hair with his sword. “Long brown plait, red cloak – why, if it isn’t our revolutionary leader!”

Irene cursed herself for thinking she could go down here alone. She told Sam herself that just because the king was dead it didn’t mean that everything was fine now. But seeing the dungeon door already open and watching the general try to get his troops in had made her over-confident.

The revolution was so close to complete, and she might just die down here, in the dungeon, at the hands of a common soldier. Didn’t he realise that he had more in common with her than he did with the ruling classes?

“Put her in one of the cells,” one soldier said to the other. “We’ll deal with her later.”

 

“Shh!” Gabby froze in place, ears straining to hear what had alerted Cass. They were travelling without light – Gabby hoped she could remember these tunnels well enough to find her way out without it. She ought to. She’d designed them, after all. A right turn up here should take them into the tunnel that lead to the outside world, just beyond the castle walls.

But there were footsteps coming towards them.

The sound was moving slowly, oddly shuffling, and Gabby could hear their breathing. It sounded like they were dragging something heavy.

At a nudge from Cass, Gabby pressed her back up against the wall, holding her breath. Perhaps whoever it was would pass them by, without even noticing them. The footsteps got closer. Gabby could hear somebody making their way past her, she swore she could almost see them in the darkness.

And then a hand knocked against her arm.

Gabby bit her lips and fought the urge to make a sound. But it was too late. The footsteps had stopped. The three of them stood in absolute silence. Perhaps the other person was as scared as Gabby was. Perhaps they were hoping that if they stood very, very still and didn’t so much as breath, nobody would know they were there, and they would get out without getting caught.

But to the best of Gabby’s knowledge, only one other person knew about these tunnels.  And when you were chief advisor to the king, you hardly needed to worry about being caught.

Gabby wasn’t a revolutionary. She didn’t carry concealed weapons, or know how to best anyone in a fight. When she heard the man start to move again, she stuck out her foot.

The resulting thud was quite satisfying. Light flared up in Cass’ hands, and then Gabby was standing over the royal vizier, who in turn was sprawled atop what looked an awful lot like the king’s corpse.

Cass looked at Gabby. Gabby looked at Cass.

They did what any sensible people would do in that situation, turned towards the exit, and broke into a run.


	25. Chapter 25

It was an ungodly hour of the morning, and Sam was possibly quite drunk, but she had no intention closing the tavern any time soon. The king was dead, after all. That was definitely a fact worth celebrating. She pulled herself another tankard of ale, and held it out to toast whatever stranger happened to be sitting across the bar. “The king is dead!” she declared.

“Long live the people!” he responded. Their tankards clinked, and Sam happily drained hers

The door to the tavern swung open, and possibly the only person not celebrating the recent death of the king stumbled in.

His face was morose, the white dog on his tunic splattered red. As he sat down at her bar, Sam thought she glimpsed blood under his nails. He looked oddly familiar, but Sam couldn’t push through alcohol fuzz in her head to remember when she’d seen him.

“Your strongest drink,” he said.

Sam ran her eyes over the bottles in front of her, and selected some bizarre brew that she’d bought off a trader from some far off land. He’d told her it was made of some kind of plant called ‘agave’, although Sam had never heard of such a plant before. All she knew was that it was very strong, and it tasted like danger.

It looked like exactly what this man needed.

She poured him a large shot, and placed it on the table in front of him. Now that she was close up, she could see that that was definitely blood on his tunic. Sam shuddered, and turned away. She didn’t need some strange, bloodied knight dampening her spirits.

After a few minutes, she shot another glance at him.

He definitely looked familiar.

“Another drink?” he asked, when he saw her looking. Sam obediently filled his glass, took his payment, and spent a moment examining him as she did. He looked relatively unassuming. There was nothing to remind of her of why she might know him.

A few more hours later, with the tavern finally emptying, Sam, halfway through packing up some glasses, heard a slurred voice from across the bar. “You know, it usually takes  a lot to get me drunk, but I’m feeling kind of dizzy already. It’s probably because I committed a murder this morning. I don’t usually do that.”

Sam put down the glass with a thud, and turned to face him. “You killed the king,” she said.

The man looked up at her, and didn’t say anything.

“Sir Nicholas, Master of Coin. You killed the king.”

Sir Nicholas nodded. “I did.”

Sam recalled Phoebe telling her early in the evening that she’d thought the binding spell had been broken, right up until the moment the king fell from the wall. She wondered if it was broken now. She hadn’t imagined he would look quite so shaken while the spell lasted. When he’d left the tavern, he’d looked a little confused, dazed, not horrified and what he was about to do and ready to drown his sorrows. Where was Jason when she needed him? He would know what to do with this man. But Jason and Lara had gone home together hours ago, and Sam was almost alone in the bar with a possibly mind-controlled, but possible just very pissed off, murderer.

“Do you remember doing it?” Sam asked.

Sir Nicholas nodded. “I knew what I was doing,” he said. “When I did it.” He stumbled over his words, the alcohol obvious affecting him. “You know, even though your…” -he waved a hand over to a table where Phoebe had been sitting at some point in the night- “…your friend, she told me to kill him. But that’s not why I did it. I did it because…” He trailed off an stared into his glass. “I don’t think monarchy’s really fair,” he said, and then slumped forward onto the bar.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for minor human dissection and blood.

Ariel stood in Claire’s laboratory, examining a strange piece of equipment that Claire had been working on, before she’d left him. She’d never really talked to him about this bizarre contraption – two long cords, with metal plates on the ends, attached to a large box, with a metal rod than ran up into the ceiling. He had some inkling of what it might do, but all he knew for certain was that when one of his experiments failed, Claire would relieve him of the body, bring it into her laboratory, and stay up late on stormy nights, working with this strange machine. She’d dropped some hints that she might have been getting very close to success, just before she’d left. Hopefully, weather permitting, Ariel would have that success tonight.

Ariel headed over the body on the slab in the centre of the laboratory. There was a lot of blood, and definitely no signs of life. This was going to be very tricky. He picked up his scissors, and carefully cut away the fabric around the wound in the king’s chest.

He took his scalpel in his right hand, and cut into through the king’s flesh, opening the chest cavity, and revealing the inner organs. Yes, it looked like the sword would have pierced straight through the king’s heart, stopping it beating within mere moments. Even if it were to beat again, it was far too damaged to keep a body alive. With swift, precise movements, Ariel cut the heart from the body, and lifted it out. “It’s still warm,” he said wonderingly, as blood dripped down his forearm.

Beside the body, a superior heart waited – cold, artificial, pieced together painstakingly in the laboratory.

Above him, lightning cracked.


	27. Chapter 27

Sam woke up to the late morning sun streaming in her window, and an unpleasant sort of feeling in her stomach. She sat up and reached for the glass of water she’d had the sense to place beside her bed before she went to sleep.

“Morning,” said Phoebe, standing in her doorway. So that was what had woken her. “We’ve got a problem.”

“We just killed the king,” said Sam, although murder wasn’t something she would usually want to put a ‘we’ to, “Can’t we not have a problem for one day.”

“We’ve got two problems, actually,” said Phoebe.

“What?”

“Irene’s not back.”

Sam had hazy memories of sitting in the bar with a drink in her hand, and trying to toast their glorious leader, only to discover her absent. It had left her with a vague feeling of unease at the time, but that had quickly passed. It returned now, and with it another memory, of Irene’s red cloak disappearing into the castle – down into the dungeon – while Sam headed off to celebrate. Sam couldn’t say whether the sick feeling in her stomach was caused by alcohol or worry.

“And what’s the other problem?” she asked.

“The king’s murderer passed out on the bar.”

“Is that a problem?”

“The king’s dead, Sam, but this isn’t over, not really. We have to take the castle – properly. We have to get the army on side. We have to install a new government. And until we’ve done that, having the king’s murderer passed out on our bar is what they call incriminating evidence.”

Sam nodded, pulling on a skirt, and tugging at her corset lacings. “See what you can find out about Irene,” she said to Phoebe. She couldn’t handle thinking through the implications of that right now. “I’ll deal with Sir Nicholas.”

 

Phoebe headed downstairs to find Laurencini had moved the unresponsive knight to a chair in corner, and wrapped him in a blanket in an attempt to hide the coat-of-arms on his tunic. A wise move.

Cass was sitting at one of the tables, eating breakfast with a women Phoebe didn’t recognise. Phoebe rushed over, and embraced Cass. “I didn’t see you come in last night! You’re not in a dungeon!”

“Apparently not,” Cass agreed. She looked quite happy, and she was eating her breakfast with enthusiasm. Phoebe felt a great sense of relief. “This is Gabby,” Cass continued. “Gabby, Phoebe.”

Gabby smiled at Phoebe. She looked pale, and not well-fed. Phoebe wondered how long she’d spent in the dungeons.

“We broke out together,” Cass continued. “She helped build a bunch of tunnels under the castle – you need to talk to her about it later. But right now there’s something that’s probably much more important that we need to tell you. We took one of Gabby’s tunnels to get out, and while we were in there, we ran into the Grand Vizier. He was carry the king’s corpse.”

“The king’s corpse?” Phoebe frowned. She’d wondered briefly the previous day what had become of the king’s body, but it hadn’t been a major concern. “I guess they want it properly buried.”

Gabby shook her head vehemently. “You don’t understand. When I was building these tunnels, I got a chance to look inside Ariel’s laboratories. And in his labs, he’s got these huge cages, and these kind of tables, with metal straps, just the right size to strap people to them. I think… I think he _experiments_ on people.”

“But the king’s dead,” Phoebe said. “He’s just a corpse.”

Behind her, she heard the sound of the door bursting open. She turned to see Jason standing in the doorway, out of breath, like he’d just run a long way to reach them. Lara fluttered behind his shoulder.

“You need to come outside!” His words were frantic, worried. “Come to the castle!”

“What is it?” Phoebe asked.

Jason shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”


	28. Chapter 28

It was easy to get into the labs. Claire knew most of the secret tunnels, and how to slip all the alarms. It wasn’t long before she was standing in the doorway of Ariel’s laboratory.

The angry mob from yesterday hadn’t made it in here. They’d set up camp in the courtyard, celebrating their success, discussing their new government, although the shreds of the old still clung together around them. They hadn’t yet made it down into the bowels of the laboratories. Ariel will still be hers to deal with.

The lab was empty. That was alright – Claire could wait. She’d bided her time for long enough while she worked with Ariel – she could wait a little longer.

In the next room, Claire heard a sound. That was odd – Ariel rarely used that lab. It had been hers. She crept across the room, and put an ear to the door. She could hear Ariel’s voice from within, although it was difficult to make out the words.

She considered for a moment leaving the door closed, and using her new-found pyrokinesis to burn the lab down, with Ariel inside it. She wasn’t too attached to her biological equipment and experiments anyway. She’d always wanted to be an alchemist, really, but Ariel had made her promises of world domination and government funding, and she’d been sucked in. Well, Ariel could burn, along with her biology lab. With the chaos outside, she hardly needed his help to conquer the nation.

But perhaps, before she killed him, she might want to see his face on last time. To make sure he knew the reasons why as she burnt him alive. To make sure he knew that she’d won.

Claire turned the knob and stepped into the room. Ariel was standing over the table, a bloody scalpel in his hand, a bloody heart in a dish beside him. Lightning cracked overhead. On the slab, a body lay motionless. A familiar face – though dull and drained of blood – stared unblinkingly at the ceiling.

“Even the king isn’t beyond your experiments,” Claire said. “I have to say, I’m impressed with your audacity.”

Ariel swung to face her. “Claire,” he said impassively. “I have been expecting you. I thought I’d see you sooner.”

“I wanted to give you some time to get your affairs in order.”

“How kind,” said Ariel. “Can you give me a few more minutes?”

“Of course.” Claire perched on a laboratory bench, and watched as Ariel put a few neat stitches in the corpse’s chest. He walked over to the contraption she had mounted on the wall, connected to the lightning rod on the roof. Thunder rolled. Ariel’s plans suddenly became apparent.

“Raising the dead?” Claire asked as she watched.

“Of course,” said Ariel. He sounded a little affronted, as though Claire should have expected such behaviour of him. To be honest, she ought to have.

Picked up the cords attached to the lightning rod, Ariel walked back towards the king. He stopped for a moment to scribble a few notes in a small notebook from his pocket. Claire dropped lightly from the bench and crossed the room to peer over his shoulder.

_Heart replacement complete. Elixir prepared. Awaiting lightning strike._

“Elixir?” Claire asked, chin on Ariel’s shoulder. “Sounds alchemical. Looks like you might need me after all. But maybe you should have thought of that before you chained me up in the basement.”

“If I hadn’t done it, you would have got to me first,” Ariel responded.

“Or perhaps I would have waited a few more months. You always promised me we would rule the country together. I would hate to have made you into a liar.”

“I hate to be one,” said Ariel. “But this town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

Claire had a knife concealed in her hand. “Too bad,” she whispered in his ear, as it slid between his ribs. “We could have had something beautiful.”

Ariel gasped and spun around, his scalpel raised in self-defence.

“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” said Claire, as blood blossomed on the front of Ariel’s white jacket.

Ariel lunged with the scalpel. Claire dodged to the right, and Ariel lunged again.

“I think you’ve forgotten something,” said Claire. Raising her free hand, she shot a jet of flames straight at Ariel’s chest.

His jacket caught alight immediately. Quick-thinking, Ariel dropped to the ground and rolled, squashing the flames.

Claire stepped forward and planted a foot firmly on his shoulder, just shy of the wound in his chest. She saw Ariel flinch, but she wasn’t bothered by his pain. No matter what their relationship had been before, he deserved it.

“You need me,” Ariel said, as Claire stood over him, knife in hand. “You can’t kill me!”

Claire laughed, and watched as he struggled.

“You would have no labs without me!” Ariel continued. “Without my position as Vizier, you wouldn’t even have any connections at court! You can’t rise to the top without me!”

Claire laughed, and changed her plans about finishing him off. “Watch me,” she said, and turned to go.

“Without my proximity to the king—“ Ariel said, his voice already weakening.

“The king is dead,” Claire responded, without turning around.

Lightning cracked again. On the slab, electricity crackled. The corpse began to move.

“Long live the king,” Ariel gasped.


	29. Chapter 29

The king stood before Angus. He blinked a few times, just to make sure he was seeing things right. Yes, it was definitely him. The king had no known children, no siblings, no cousins of his age – there was no other explanation for how a man who looked so like King Anton could be standing in front of Angus now.

The last time Angus had seen the king, as he peered out the window of the highest tower, he had been lying in a  pool of blood on the pavement, if not killed by the sword, then surely by the fall.

It was the highest tower, one of the few parts of the castle still safe from the mob, that they stood in now. The king wore a brimmed hat which concealed any wounds that would have been visible on his head, and hid his face in shadow.

Angus bowed low. “Your Majesty.”

The king nodded in response.

The king’s page, Matthew - known almost universally as Jaffy Matt, for reasons Angus did not quite understand – stepped out from behind the king. “Um… His Majesty is still recovering from his fall,” he said. “But he wants to make an appearance to reassure people, and to… to stop the riot.” The king nodded dully, and Jaffy Matt continued. “To… um… to remind people of how powerful the monarchy is… he wants to make his appearance with one of their leaders.”

Angus nodded. He knew what this meant. A monarch didn’t just ‘make an appearance’ with a notorious revolutionary leader. This would be a public execution.

“Apparently you know who he wants?” Jaffy Matt continued. “And you should bring her to the wall.

“The wall?” Angus queried.

Jaffy Matt looked momentarily thrown. This was obviously as far as he had been instructed.

“I guess he wants to go back where he fell from. To show the people that he’s not that easy to topple.”

Angus couldn’t tell whether Jaffy Matt was aware of the pun. The boy had always seemed a little seditious, but his face was obedience , his eyes wide and innocent.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” said Angus, addressing his words to the king, out of curiosity.

“Good,” said Jaffy Matt.

The king had not spoken for the entire exchange. In the dim light of the tower room, Angus attempted to examine his face. Jaffy Matt stood beside him, in uncomfortable silence. “Are you waiting for something?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” Angus said quickly, bowing once more as he began to back out of the room. “Not at all.”

 

Irene’s captors led her from the dungeon. She guessed it was mid morning, although she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed since she had encountered the two soldiers in the strangely empty dungeon. She couldn’t even tell whether these two soldiers with her now were the same ones who had first locked her up – their sinister helmets covered too much of their faces for that.

They led her up from the cell where she had spent the night – not in the regular dungeon, but one somewhere beneath the thick castle walls – until she reached a small chamber. Chairs ringed a round table, all empty except for one. At the far end of the room, a man sat with his back to Irene. All she could see was his tick dark hair, yet she recognised him immediately.

“It’s been too long,” Irene said, “brother.”


	30. Chapter 30

“I suppose they’re going to have me executed,” Irene said. She didn’t want to show her fear, yet. Perhaps by putting on an impressive, revolutionary face – not that she had any other faces, really – she could sway her bourgeois brother from his disgustingly monarchist ways.

“The king wants to make an appearance with you,” Angus responded.

Irene scoffed. “Your king is _dead_ ,” she retorted. Angus raised his eyebrows. “You may kill me, but you can’t kill freedom. It’s too late for you and your monarchy.”

 “Killing a king doesn’t kill the monarchy,” said Angus. “If you want change, you need to reform the system in a productive way, not chop of its head. .”

“Don’t talk like you know anything about wanting change. Don’t pretend you wanted him dead. Don’t pretend you weren’t a part of this regime – getting a legitimate job, finding a position at court, moving into an upmarket corner of the palace as soon as you could. Don’t pretend you’re not a part of this system!”

“Just because I’m a part of the system doesn’t mean I agree with the king’s actions! If I had it my way, I would have swayed him to a constitutional monarchy years ago. I—“

“You can’t _convince_ someone to give up absolute power,” Irene snapped.

“No,” Angus agreed. “Especially not by crowding the streets and shouting at them about it.”

“Don’t dismiss the power of the people!”

“The people are being shot at, and you might have had one small victory, but as soon as the army—“

“--joins us, we’ll take the rest of the castle, and bring about a democracy at last.”

“So when you take the castle,” Angus said, “What happens to all the people who live here? All the aristocrats, and people like me?”

“We overthrow them.”

“What does that involve?”

“We ask them if they want to join us—“

“And if they don’t, do you push them off the walls too?”

“No!”

“You’ve got an angry mob out there. How are you going to stop them?”

Irene had to acknowledge that that was true. She may be very good at rousing the people to revolution, but she wasn’t so sure about telling them when to stop.

“See?” Angus asked, obviously taking her silence as agreement. “This is why reform is the answer. A benevolent king at the head of a constitutional monarchy could—“

“Yeah? And where are you going to find a benevolent king? I suppose you’re going to tell me _you’re_ the best candidate?”

“No!” Angus looked genuinely taken aback, and Irene wasn’t sure whether to be relieved, or disappointed that he was just looking for another monarch to work for.

“Fine,” she snapped in frustration. “If you find me a ‘benevolent king’, I’ll install them in place of the one that just got murdered because people hate monarchy. Now take me to the walls.”

Angus paused awkwardly for a moment.

“What?”

“He didn’t quite get murdered.”

“If you mean that his death was entirely justifiable, then no, he didn’t.”

“No,” said Angus. “He’s still alive.”

Whatever he was getting at, Irene didn’t have time for it. She steeled herself for a her revolutionary death, she was already planning the speech she would make before it happened, and she didn’t want time to lose her nerve. “Then I’ll kill him again.” She turned on her heel, and made for the door.

Behind her, Angus placed a hand on her shoulder, and the other on one of her bound wrists, obviously in an attempt to show some authority as he led her to her execution. She wasn’t expecting it when the hand holding her wrist slipped what felt very much like the hilt of a knife into her hand. “If that’s the case,” Angus whispered, “Then you might need this.”


	31. Chapter 31

Irene stepped out onto the castle walls. She could see the crowd gathered below her – she only hoped they had turned out to rally to her cause, and not simply watch her demise. Many of them were dressed in red, which was promising. She imagined she glimpsed her friends’ faces amongst the people on the street, but she was too far away, really, to see them. She peered into the crowd all the same, searching for something familiar to distract her from what loomed over her head.

But when Irene looked up, it was not the scaffold that caught her eye. It was the king, seemingly not dead at all.

She fingered the knife, now safely concealed in in her sleeve. Despite what Angus had said, she had hardly believed him. She’d seen the king fall from these very battlements herself. There had been a _sword_ through his _chest_. There had been literal brains on the pavement. She was sure of it.

The king was wearing his most impressive crown. It covered a decent amount of his head, and served to distract attention from his face. Irene though she caught a glimpse of stitches running just beneath it.

This was ridiculous. The king couldn’t be alive. While Irene appreciated the metaphor of it all – the fact that you couldn’t kill a corrupt government simply by doing away with it’s leader, the unfortunate inclination of monarchy to perpetuate itself long after it should have died – it made her very uneasy. Even if she were to somehow free her hands, to escape from the guards surrounding her, to get to the king, and to stab him with this knife, would it work? Would he die? And if he did, what then? She needed to do more than just storm the castle. Angus was right – Irene saw that now that the dead king stood alive in front of her – she needed to reform the entire system.

Despite wanting to make an appearance with her, the king didn’t make any attempt to move, or to speak. The captain of the royal guard ushered Irene forward, and stood her on the platform beneath the scaffold. He was very well armed. She would have to pick her moment carefully.

The king’s squire was stepping down from  a small platform behind the wall. It was apparent that he had been addressing the crowd only moments before Irene had entered – probably announcing her upcoming execution. He looked pale and uncomfortable – perhaps he could be a possible ally.

Somewhere behind Irene, somebody began to beat on a snare drum. The squire, looking incredibly uncomfortable, unrolled a scroll and began to read a list of her crimes. Irene barely paid any attention – she was busy trying to lay out a plan. If she did cut the rope on her wrists with the dagger in her hands – what then? There were far too many guards for her to ever make it out of here alive. But all the same, a last show of defiance would do the revolutionary morale good, whether or not she lived.

“… to be hanged by the neck until…” the squire’s voice was wavering. He bit his lip, and continued. “To be hanged by… by the neck, until dead.”

Irene grasped the knife, and twisted her hand at what she hoped was the right angle. She flinched, feeling the blade pass across her wrist. The rope was cut.

Irene ducked away from the rope hanging above her. The captain of the guard dived to grab her, but she kicked out at his legs, hoping to knock him off his feet. Her foot collided with his greaves, and all she got out of it was bruised toes. He pushed her to the ground, one knee digging into the middle of her back. The knife skittered out of her hand, and across the cobblestones. The captain hauled her to her feet, and placed the rope around her neck. “Tie her hands. Properly, this time,” he snapped at the squire.

Irene hissed in pain as the rough rope was pulled tight around her wrists. “Sorry,” the squire whispered in her ear. “If you pull it, it’ll come undone.” He placed the knife back in her hand.

What use that was to her now, Irene had no idea. The captain of the guard adjusted the rope around her neck. The squire stepped away from the platform. The drum beat quickened.

Irene felt the trapdoor open beneath her feet.


	32. Chapter 32

Irene felt the wood surrounding the trapdoor scrape her legs, and suddenly she was landing awkwardly on the ground beneath the scaffold. The rope noose was still around her neck, but the end hung loose and frayed, falling heavy against her back. She looked up and saw the other end of the rope, still suspended above her head. An arrow was embedded in the wood just behind it.

Irene didn’t have a chance to comprehend what had happened before the commotion broke out above her. She scrambled to her feet, tugging her hands free of the false knot, and tightening her grip on the hilt of the knife the squire had given her.

It was too late. The captain of the guard loomed over her, sword in hand. She dodged his first swing, and struck out with her knife. It glance off the shining plate of her armour, and she ducked again, almost too slow. She _felt_ the blade slice through the air above her head.

Two men were coming up behind the captain, just a step away. As soon as she was outnumbered, Irene would have no hope.

“Duck!” yelled a voice behind her. Irene obeyed. The king’s squire took out the captain with a solid punch to the face.

Two flaming arrows shot past Irene’s face in quick succession, and the two guards in front of her fell to the ground. She stumbled backwards in shock. The crowd below supported her – she could tell from their shouts, and not all of the guards were loyal, but these arrows were coming from above. She glanced upwards just in time to see a dark figure duck behind the tower crenellations.

A single hidden figure could only do so much good for her. Wielding her knife, Irene entered the fray.

Irene, for the most part, liked to think there would be better solutions to her problems than one-on-one physical violence. She pictured a better world, a utopia where such actions were considered barbarous history.

That didn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t a trained fighter. For a revolutionary to be anything less would be naïve at best, and suicidal at worst.

The fight didn’t last long. Irene knew she didn’t have much chance of winning. Her best bet was to simply fight her way through the mêlée and get the hell out of there. She parried one sword with her knife, and then knocked her next attacker aside. A quick kick at the weak knees of his armour took down the third guard in front of her, and then Irene made a dash for the door.

She didn’t get far. A searing pain went up her arm, and she spun to see a fourth assailant just inches from her, grinning, sword raised.

“Take that, you peasant-loving—“

He burst into flames, and never finished his sentence. He fell to the ground, and a dark figure stood behind him. She was holding a cross-bow, and her hands were smoking. A rope was slung over her hips.

She stowed the crossbow over her shoulder, neatly taking out a guard who stood behind her without so much as a backward glance. Her hands now free, she lassoed her rope onto a merlon, stepped forward, and wrapped her arms around Irene’s waist.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, as she stepped off the wall.


	33. Chapter 33

The revolutionaries gathered below the Corkman. Their number had grown even in just the few days since the supposed ‘death’ of the king, but despite the small crowd, silence hung over them. Irene’s usual chair was empty.

“Okay,” said Phoebe, to the king’s squire, who had joined them for the first time today. “Tell me this again.”

Jaffy Matt shook his head. “I’ve told you everything I can. I didn’t get a chance to see her properly. She was wearing all black, and there was a lot of fire – I think she had, like, pyrokenises. It was pretty cool, actually. It was a woman, I’m pretty sure. But I don’t know who it was.”

“And they abseiled into the castle courtyard?”

“Mmhm.”

Lara was there now, looking for Irene, but even Sam, who ostensibly just ran an inn and never attempted to overthrow the government, knew enough about the secret passages under the castle to know that nobody, government or revolutionary, knew all of them, and that if somebody down there didn’t want to be found, they never would.

“And what about the king?” Sam asked. She’d spent the morning talking to Sir Nicholas, and although the Master of Coin was clearly both incredibly confused and very hung-over, he was adamant that the man he had stabbed had definitely been the king. Despite Phoebe’s protestations that it made no sense, Jaffy Matt seemed to think the same. “How are we supposed to overthrow the monarchy with a king that won’t stay dead?”

“If he is alive,” said Hamish, “- and there are historical precedents for necromancy – then he’ll be in a weakened state, and he won’t be hard to kill again. He’s not undead, he’s just… not dead. He’ll be about as easy to kill as anyone would who’d had their brains smashed on the flagstones last Tuesday.”

“Which is to say, already dead,” said Phoebe.

“Is killing the king even the thing to do right now?” Sam asked. They seemed to be very hung up on it, but it was hardly freeing the oppressed, which was supposed to be the goal, wasn’t it?

Jason nodded in agreement. “Obviously toppling their figurehead doesn’t work. We’ve tried that once.”

“If he was actually dead, it might,” said Hamish hopefully. Phoebe nodded. Sam frowned at their bloodlust. It was clear they needed a strong leader with untainted ideals to keep them on the track to freedom. If only they knew where Irene was…

“That’s all well and good,” said the woman Cass brought with her from the dungeon – Gabby, Sam thought her name might be – “But how are we supposed to _get_ to the king?”

Sam nodded. “We stormed the castle, but we’ve hardly taken control of it, have we? I mean, they managed to capture Irene, and…” She trailed off, still horrified at the thought of what could have happened, and worried about how the revolution would fare without its leader. Irene always talked about how it was a _people’s_ revolution, and how if it couldn’t survive without her then it wasn’t the sort of revolution she wanted to survive at all, but nonetheless….

“Sam’s right,” said Phoebe. “Anyone who could get into the castle, find the king and kill him right now would need to be some kind of master assassin.”

“Well,” said a voice from the doorway, which had been securely bolted before the meeting began. There was a hiss of metal on leather as several of the revolutionaries drew their weapons and Sam felt her heart drop to her stomach. They had been discovered. But when she turned to face the doorway, Sam smiled in spite of herself. Reclining against the doorframe stood Paul. “I thought you’d never ask.”


	34. Chapter 34

Irene had no idea where she was. All she knew was the it was very dark, and that somewhere in that darkness, her mysterious rescuer was leading her by the hand along a series of twisting, turning passageways, gods only knew where. Every time Irene had attempted to speak, the unknown woman had shushed her, and so she’d given up for now. Things could definitely be worse. At least there wasn’t a noose around her neck anymore.

They stopped, finally, in some darkened corner that looked like all the other darkened corners they’d past in the last few minutes. Well, ‘looked like’ was something of a loose description, if pitch black could be described as looking like anything. Irene only knew that the woman in front of her had stopped walking when she collided with her back, and got a crossbow quiver to the face. A sharp bolt scraped against her forehead, and Irene was about to cry out instinctively when a hand closed over her mouth. Silence fell.

Now that they were standing still, Irene could be sure of it. She hadn’t imagined the footsteps behind them.

In the darkened tunnels, with their strange acoustics, it was impossible to tell if their pursuers were nearby or not.

Impossible, that is, until the flickering lights of a torch appeared illuminated one of the walls.

Irene felt her rescuer’s breath warm against her ear. “Don’t even _breathe_ ,” she whispered.

Irene did as she was told, watching the flickering light grow brighter and trying to focus on anything but her second impending death of the day. Her rescuer had an upper-class sort of accent, and she pondered that instead. What would a member of the nobility be doing rescuing revolutionaries? Support from members of the court itself was certainly what Irene had always _hoped_ for, but the violent overthrow of one class by another had also seemed far more likely.

And the moment, of course, that she found such a person, it was deep beneath the castle, running for her life.

Irene resisted the urge to sigh.

The light got brighter as whoever was carry the torch rounded the corner, and Irene found herself suddenly shoved unceremoniously against the cold stone wall, her rescuer pressed up against her. “And of course you had to wear bright red,” the woman hissed in Irene’s ear, her own black clothing hopefully concealing them from view in the darkness.

The light swept over them. Irene could feel her heart hammering in her chest, and then—“Looks like there’s nothing down this way,” said a gruff voice. The light began to move away again, and then the strange woman took her hand once more, and they ventured on into the darkness.

 

Sam caught up with Paul just as he reached the door onto the street. Whether he was going to go out right now and stab the king wasn’t a hundred per cent clear, but there were probably a couple of things that needed to be said before he did. The look Phoebe had given Sam when Paul disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived, apparently ready to fulfil his commission, suggested that it was her job.

“We can’t afford to pay you.”

Paul turned around at the sound of Sam’s voice. He wasn’t tied up in her cellar or lounging against a doorway now, and it occurred to her that he was very, very tall. It was remarkable that he managed to pass unseen anywhere long enough to kill anyone. Sam frowned at the reminder of exactly what it was he did for a living. She’d managed to forget it all too often when they were dining in the cellar together.

“I’m not asking you to.”

Sam’s frown deepened. “Last time I suggested it, you implied that selling the Corkman wouldn’t even get me close to your asking price.”

Paul grinned. “Did I?”

“You did. What’s changed?” Sam didn’t want to believe that this was the set-up for some kind of betrayal, but it seemed too convenient to be true.

“I dunno,” said Paul, and Sam thought for a moment that he was just going to turn and leave. “Maybe the army opening fire on innocent civilians?”

“That’s it?” Sam asked. It was hardly like the king had treated his subjects _well_ before.

“That’s it,” said Paul. He met her eyes for a moment, and then stepped out the door and disappeared into the crowded street.


	35. Chapter 35

The room Irene and her rescuer ended up in was very much not what she had expected. They had traipsed through several more darkened corridors – their pursuers now lost, at least – until they had arrived at some very nice, classy-looking apartments. Irene glanced out the window and discerned that they had actually left the castle, but that they were not far away – definitely nobility, then.

“Away from the window,” her rescuer said, her tone something that could only be called long-suffering. Irene felt that was rather unfair. This mysterious women hadn’t had to put up with her for all that long.

The woman took Irene by the wrist and pulled her away from the window, directing her to a large and very comfortable armchair. Irene sat down obediently, suddenly very worn out from this whole near-death situation. The woman drew the curtains, lit the lamps – by flicking a strange switch on the wall, Irene noticed, though right now that was the least of her questions – and then came and perched, most unladylike, on the arm of Irene’s chair. “You must have questions,” she said.

Irene nodded. Her head was swimming with questions. “Are you… a scientist?” she asked, plucking one at random.

The woman threw back her head and laughed. She had a melodious kind of laugh. Irene rather liked it, although now was not the time to be thinking about that. “I am a scientist,” the woman said, and she looked rather smug and pleased with herself. “An alchemist, to be precise.” She said that with a hint of defiance, something which didn’t make sense to Irene now, but which she filed away for later.

Irene had sat in on a few of Jason’s alchemy classes at the Academy. It was one of the few branches of science that wizards had embraced, although Phoebe had explained to her later that true scientists were far more interested in detailed recording of their results to ensure they could be repeated than wizards were. In Irene’ s experience, wizards were more interested in getting one up on their colleagues than sharing and repeating results.

The point of the matter, though, was that alchemists didn’t usually go around shooting fire from their bare hands.

The woman obviously interpreted Irene’s furrowed brow as a different kind of confusion, took pity on her, and said, “Lady Claire, Mistress of Science to the king, if we still have one.”

“I should hope not,” said Irene although she had no idea what had become of the king in the fight. It was refreshing not to have to hide her treasonous tendencies in front of the nobility, and so she added, “I’ll kill him again myself if we do.”

The Mistress of Science laughed again, and Irene wondered what she had against the king. Court politics? A genuine concern for the welfare of the people? Irene hoped for the latter, but the former was much more realistic. But wait – “Mistress of Science?” Irene asked. In an attempt to know her enemy, Irene had examined the structure of the Court in great detail, and never once had she stumbled across such a title. There was Kieran, Royal Wizard; his cousin Sir Nicholas, Master of Coin; Sir Sean, commander of the king’s army; her own brother; and Ariel, Grand Vizier. So who was this ‘Mistress of Science’?

“What _are_ you?” Irene asked, regretting as she said it that she lived in a world where ‘Who are you’ meant ‘What is your standing in relation to the king?’

“I was… attached, shall we say, to the Grand Vizier. But the poor thing is dead, unfortunately, and—“

“The Grand Vizier is dead?” This news hadn’t reached Irene yet. “Killed in the riots, I suppose?”

The Lady Claire didn’t laugh this time. She simply smiled. It was a sinister smile, out of place on her beautiful face. Irene shuddered. It would hardly be the first time a lady of the court had done away with their partner, but they usually waited at least until they had been wed and could benefit from the crime. “When you say attached…?”

Lady Claire waved her hand dismissively. “He provided me with some laboratories, equipment… I did some work with him. He made good conversation. But I rather think I outgrew him, in the end.” She shrugged carelessly, although Irene saw her eyes darken with emotion as she spoke – there was clearly more to this story. “Just like the country has outgrown the monarchy, in fact. Don’t you agree?”

Irene nodded, but warily. An attractive stranger with connections at court whisking her away from certain death and, it seemed, offering to help bring down the monarchy – it was too good to be true.

“I’m glad we agree,” said the Lady Claire, “Because I have a plan.”


	36. Chapter 36

Sam was just closing the door behind Paul when the soldiers arrived. If she’d had a chance, she would have dropped the heavy bar into place – because what revolutionary pub would be without a method of barring their door? – dragged the heaviest table over, and hustled all her treasonous friends down into the basement. As it was, she was pushed backwards by the sheer force of the door opening, and landed painfully on the floor. She struggled to her feet, but it was already too late – a troop of armoured, helmeted soldiers, all decked out with the king’s sigil, marched right into her inn and started shouting orders, tossing furniture aside, and generally wreaking havoc.

Sam struggled to her feet. It was far too late to call out the codeword that would alert her friends to the danger. If they hadn’t heard it already, they were well and truly done for.

Thankfully, most of them were still down in the basement, and it would take the soldiers a few minutes at least to be done with the ground floor, search the upstairs rooms, and then discover the hidden stairway behind the kitchen.

Sam was just ducking into the kitchen, ready to warn them, when she was grabbed roughly by the collar, and turned to face the man who was obviously their leader.

“Where is he?” he demanded. He was tall and thin – not the large, intimidating build Sam was used to seeing in a soldier.

“I don’t know!” Sam answered. She held up her hands placatingly, showing that they were empty of weapons. “I had nothing to do with any of this. I was here the whole time, serving drinks. Ask—“

“We know he’s here. We’ve had reports. Turn him over, or you’ll regret it.” The man shoved her, hard, against the wall.

Sam blinked a few times, her head throbbing. Through the pain in her skull, combined with her already sore limbs, it took her a moment to realise something. “He?” They weren’t talking about Irene or her rescuer at all.

“Sir Nicholas, damn it!” the soldier snapped.

“Sir Nicholas?” This wasn’t what she’d expected at all. Sir Nicholas was upstairs, sleeping off an awful hangover.

“We’ll turn this place over from top to bottom. Things will go easier for you if you hand him in. Otherwise, it’s the noose for you, and don’t think your pretty friend will be coming in for any dramatic rescues a second time!”

Sam shook her head. It would be very easy to hand him in, to give them Sir Nicholas, let them think they’d found everything that was hidden here, and let her friends go free. But she could hardly hand a man over to his death. He’d looked so _lost_ last night, and besides, regardless of his political views, Sam was very much against capital punishment.

“It was crowded in here last night,” Sam said. “If he came in, I didn’t see him.”

The soldier hit her across the face with the back of a gauntleted hand. “ _Don’t_ lie to me.”

Sam spat blood. “I haven’t seen him. I wouldn’t know him if I—“

“Oh come on. Don’t tell me you weren’t watching with the rest of the bloody kingdom when His Majesty fell from the wall. You know exactly what he looks like and if you tried to tell me otherwise…” He pulled a short sword from his belt. Sam tried to back up, but she was already against the wall.

“I haven’t seen him,” she repeated. Her mouth tasted of metal, and she could feel her lip swelling, but she wasn’t handing anybody over to these thugs.

The soldier raised his sword. Sam swallowed, but held her ground.

The hilt crashed against her skull, and she slumped to the floor.


	37. Chapter 37

It took a few days before Irene could safely return to the Corkman. They were out on the streets searching for her, and the country was in chaos. It was better, Claire wisely advised, if they lay low for a little. This involved a lot of time spent sitting in Claire’s rooms, doing very little. Irene paced, immensely frustrated.

“My friends don’t even know I’m alive!”

“I wouldn’t have rescued you to kill you,” Claire countered. That seemed to make sense, at least. Claire had saved her life, and not only that, but she’d promised to help the cause.

Eventually, they exhausted all normal avenues of conversation, and lapsed into, “What do you think I should wear to the opening of Parliament? Is head to toe red too much?”

Claire – whose all-black wardrobe Irene had now seen – frowned. “I can’t imagine anyone pulling off head-to-toe red. But if _anybody_ could, it would be you.”

Irene found herself surprisingly flattered.

“Now that Ariel’s gone,” Claire said, “I’ve been thinking I should get my own coat of arms, don’t you? I’m sick of wearing his colours.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Black?”

“Just black?” Irene frowned at her. “At least add some red.”

“Black and red. Maybe a snake.”

“Sounds lovely,” said Irene. With nothing else to do while she was stuck in Claire’s rooms, she picked up a needle and scrap of fabric, and began to design it.

“Do you believe in the revolution?” Irene asked.

“As far as it benefits me.” Claire was always cagey on this topic. Or rather, she was bluntly honest about her self-interest. Irene wasn’t entirely sure she believed her.

“Then why are you helping us?”

“It benefits me,” Claire said again, as she headed out.

 

When Sam came to, she’d been carried upstairs, and laid out carefully on one of the beds. Cass sat beside her, a cup of steaming liquid in one hand. Sam blinked a few times, trying to clear the blurriness from her eyes. Around the edges of her vision, darkness was swimming. She groaned, and closed her eyes again.

“Hey,” said Cass, her voice soft. “If you’re awake, you’ll feel better if you drink this.”

Sam groaned again, and then regretted it immediately. If she didn’t let Cass know she was awake, she wouldn’t have to sit up.

Unfortunately for her, Cass leaned forward and carefully helped Sam into a sitting position, pressing a cup to her lips. Sam swallowed. Whatever it was tasted bitter and awful – witches’ potions always did – but it warmed her all the way through, and her vision cleared within a few seconds.

“Did that help?” Cass asked, although competent witch that she was, she ought to be confident in her skill.

Sam nodded. It didn’t hurt to move her head this time. “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

Cass shook her head. “Phoebe,” she said, her tone flat. “They took Phoebe.”

 

Lara sat perched on one of the battlements, looking down at the prisoners that the army had gathered in the castle courtyard below. She couldn’t hear what was being read out – snatches of sound reached her, but most of it was carried away on the swift breeze, which caught tatters of red fabric that so many of the prisoners wore and made them fly in the wind like a sad parody of a flag.

Whatever he had been saying, the man finished it, rolled up his scroll, and nodded to someone.

On the other side of the yard, a row of archers waited. They raised their bows in unison.

Beside his herald, the king crumpled soundlessly to the ground.

A hush descended over the crowd. They’d seen their king killed once before, and they’d seen him come back again. They no longer knew what it meant.

The herald glanced at the body at his feet, at the piece of paper in his hands, and at the rows of waiting prisoners.

“Long live the people!” One of the prisoners, a bright red armband tied around the sleeve of his blue jacket like a splash of blood, raised his left fist. Weighed down with chains, it barely made it to the customary salute of the resistance. All the same, the message was clear.

“Long live the people!” a familiar voice responded. Among those awaiting their deaths, Lara caught sight of Phoebe; beside her, the man who had killed the king.

“Long live the people!” The chained crowd took up the cry.

His left arm lifting higher, fighting the weight of the chains, the man in the blue jacket started to sing. Lara had heard the song before, in the back room of the Corkman, when there had still been time in the revolution for flatbread, and Irene’s impassioned speeches were made without the desperate note of defeat in her voice.

“What are you waiting for?” the herald snapped. It wasn’t from the dead king that he took his orders.

The first row of prisoners crumpled to the ground.

Unable to watch, Lara took to the air.


	38. Chapter 38

“I’m going home.”

Jason looked up from his workbench in surprise. It was the first time he’d had a chance to go home in a couple of days. He had potions to prepare, work to do, spells to memorise. With the raid on the Corkman, the revolution had taken a dramatic downhill turn. There was a lot of work to be done if they wanted to succeed.

Lara was standing in front of him, soot still smeared on her face from her latest scouting mission.

“Sorry?” said Jason.

“You and the professor talked about how you could send me home?” she said. She sounded less sure of herself than she had a moment before.

Jason nodded. “Yes, of course we can.” He paused. “Whenever you want,” he added, his heart already sinking.

Lara nodded. “I think I’d like to go home,” she said again. Her hands were shaking.

“Has something…”

Lara shook her head, then nodded, then sat down abruptly in her nest.

Biting his lip anxiously, Jason took a seat beside her, “What happened, Lara?” When she didn’t answer, he continued, “You don’t have to tell me, but if what you saw…” he felt bad pressing her for information, when she was obviously so shaken by what she had seen “…if what you saw could help us, then… And then we’ll go see Hamish, and talk about getting you home, okay?”

“Phoebe,” Lara managed to say, and then she was curled up in her nest, crying.

 

Once they had determined it was safe for Irene to leave, Claire set about organising things. She’d promised Irene weapons, and although she knew where they were, she needed a little bit of help getting her hands on them.

She invited the king’s Second Vizier for lunch. This should be an easy piece of persuasion. “King Anton is either dead, or an awful monarch, Sir Nicholas has been executed for treason, Ariel’s dead,” she told Angus. He nodded in agreement – he recognised the weakness of the court. “Somebody needs to hold the country together until we’ve had some decent talks with the mob.”

“And who’s going to do it?” Angus asked. “Kieran—“

“Kieran would be a tyrant. He’d be another Anton. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If you’d let me finish,” Angus retorted, “I was going to say that Kieran couldn’t run a country. Sir Sean’s got an army, but—“

“Not Kieran,” said Claire. “And not Sir Sean. You and I. All I need is for you to sign off on access to the king’s new weapons.”

Angus frowned. “I don’t want to lead a country,” he said. “My sister’s the one who thinks she can take over the country.”

“You have a sister?” Claire cut in. She’d always thought Angus was without family. At the very least, he’d risen from a lowly background, and any sister he had was unlikely to be taking over countries.

Angus nodded, staring Claire down with an odd sort of defiance, as though he were daring her to say something more.

Oh. Suddenly it all fell into place, and this was _so much better_ than Claire had ever predicted. She tried to school her face into something unsurprised, but she doubted she succeeded in disguising her glee all that well. Oh, this would be so _easy._

 

The group that gathered around the table in the basement of the Corkman to greet Irene had shrunk since she was last here. Jaffy Matt stood there, defiant, a gash down one cheek. Jason was there. Lara, who Irene was used to seeing as a fixture by his side, was gone. He looked shaken, and Irene didn’t dare to ask. Laurencini, Gabby and Hamish stood with him. Cass was upstairs, ministering to Sam and Lauren. And Phoebe—

Nobody answered when Irene first asked. She scanned the room, hoping somebody would meet her eye, tell her that Phoebe was fine, that she was just out at the apothecary, that she was taking a nap after a long night’s revolutionary work. That she would walk in the door at any moment.

One by one, they dropped their gazes.

“Lara saw it happen,” Jason said eventually, weakly. She saw him swallow. “She’s gone home.”

Hamish – the quiet professor, who had to be lured out of his library with promises of glorious stories to tell to his descendants – got to his feet, and Irene recognised the look on his face. It was the look thousands had worn, as they refused to be crushed by their oppressors.

It was, Irene was suddenly sure, the look Phoebe had died with.

“Right,” said Hamish. “Our leader is back now. We need to arm ourselves. We have a country to free.”

Irene looked at him, his eyes alight with revolutionary fervour, his fists clenched.

And then she shook her head.

“You can’t lose hope now, Irene,” said Jason, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Phoebe… Phoebe wouldn’t have…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Irene simply nodded in understanding. “We don’t attack yet. We have to wait a few days. We have an ally in the court, and she’s organise things for us. Guns to arm the people.”

“Guns?” Jason was frowning at her. “I’ve heard of them, but I didn’t think anybody had any kind of _quantity_ of them.”

“The king’s scientists had them made.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “And why would she give it to us?”

“She believes in the cause.” Seeing his disbelief, she added, “She _does._ How could anybody _not_?”

“If that were true..” said Jason, and a hundred ends to that sentence ran through his head. _If that were true, Phoebe would still be alive_.

“I know.”

“She saved my life.”

“I _know_. But _why_?”

“Surely you can only serve in court for so long before you realise that the only path to freedom is popular revolution.”

“Some people aren’t looking for a path to freedom,” said Jason.

“Look.” Irene spread her hands on the table before her. “If she keeps her promise, all the better for us. If she doesn’t, we lose nothing.”

“But time. We’re clinging on to _something_ here, and if we can convene a parliament and get some kind of governmental system in place as fast as we can, we have a chance of finally taking control—“

“Without any kind of army to hold on to our control. We’ve got peasants and proletariats with torches and pitchforks but that’s not _enough_ , Jason.”

“When did you get so practical?”

Irene knew the answer to that – when Phoebe wasn’t there to do it for her. But all she said was, “We’ve got nothing else, Jason.”

“But how do we know we can trust her?”

Cass’ head appeared around the door, with remarkable good timing. “There’s someone here to see you, Irene. And they might just have the answer.”


	39. Chapter 39

“This is my brother, Angus,” Irene explained. She led a thin figure, clad in a long cloak with a deep hood, into the room.

It was only when they stood side-by-side that Jason suddenly saw the resemblance between the siblings. “I had no idea,” he said.

“Most people don’t,” Angus answered.

“What brings you here?” Jason asked warily.

“Claire came to visit me today,” Angus said, without preamble.

Jason cast a meaningful glance at Irene, which he suspected she deliberately failed to intercept. This should reveal whether the Mistress of Science was trustworthy.

“Claire?” Irene asked. Her tone was conversational.

“She’s calling herself the Mistress of Science now. She was Ariel’s… partner.”

“I know who Claire is,” said Irene. “Why did she visit you?”

“She needed somebody to sign off to gain access to the king’s secret cache of guns. For you.”

Irene looked at Jason. The look said _I told you so_.

Jason wasn’t so quick to jump on board. “So who’s side are you on?” he asks Angus bluntly.

“The people, of course,” Angus said. Perhaps with a trace of irony. “And so is Claire. It was only when she discovered that you were my sister, and that I’d helped you that she told me the reason she needed the weapons.”

“And why are you here?” Jason pressed.

“I wanted to check she was telling the truth before I signed anything.”

Jason and Irene exchange a long look.

“Well,” said Jason. It seemed that Claire was following through on her promise. “It sounds like she is.”

 

Angus returned early the following day. “Claire’s ready to see you,” he said. Irene got to her feet.

“With weapons?” she asked eagerly.

Angus nodded. “All of you. She wants to meet at the castle.”

“At the castle?” Irene narrowed her eyes. There was still a chance she was walking into a trap.

“In the throne room,” Angus continued.

“The _throne room_?” That was one part of the castle they hadn’t managed to take, in this bloody to-and-fro between the people and their oppressors.

“The throne room.”

“So it’s true. The king is dead for real this time.”

Angus nodded. “It’s true.”

Irene nodded, and ducked inside the Corkman. Jason was sleeping at the table – he and Hamish had been up all night, keeping watch for signs of further army raids. Irene shook his shoulder.

Carefully, she shook Jason by the shoulder. He turned his head and blinked at her with bleary blue eyes.

“Hey Jason,” Irene said, “It’s time.”

Jason sat up straight, rubbing his eyes. “Time….

“To meet with Claire. She has the weapons we need. She’ll meet us in the throne room.”

“All of us?”

“As many of us as want to have the means with which to fight our oppressors.”

Jason got to his feet. “I’ll rally the troops,” he said.

 

Before they left, Jason stepped back into the doorway of the Corkman for a moment, where Cass and Gabby remained to tend to the wounded. “Cass,” he said, his gaze intense. “We have every reason to believe Claire is genuine, but just in case…”

“Irene trusts Claire,” said Cass, as though that was enough for her.

“Do you?”

“I just wish this was over we never had to ask that question,” she said.

“I know, I know. But we do.”

“I trust Irene,” said Cass.

Jason sighed. That was the best he was going to get. “Do me a favour?”

“Yes?” She sounded wary. Cass didn’t shirk from the duties of the revolution, but she had never taken the same delight in the conflict that Irene did.

“If Claire turns round and stabs us in the back, make sure the people are there to avenge us.

Cass nodded. “I can do that.”

 

Irene couldn’t conceal her smile and she made her way to the castle. If Claire was meeting them in the throne room, that meant they’d succeeded. That meant Claire had not only sourced them weapons, but that she had enough power that a wanted fugitive, a revolutionary leader, could not only walk the streets unharmed, but enter the very heart of the castle.

Finally, they were making progress.

Irene wondered if Claire knew it was her birthday.

 

Cass didn’t make revolutionary speeches. It very much wasn’t her domain. She told herself in her head she could do it, and perhaps part of her believed it, but the other part of her brain was busy ensuring that her hands were shaking, palms sweaty, and that her legs didn’t quite feel like they could hold her up.

“You can do it, Cassie,” said Gabby, standing by her side.

“We believe in you.” Sam’s voice, though weak, gave her confidence.

Standing on the balcony of the Corkman, Cass looked over the crowded street. Even the logistics of it was a mystery to her. How did Irene ever make herself _heard_ over this hubbub of voices. Luckily, Cass wasn’t a witch for nothing. From her pocket, she pulled a small flask, from which she took a swig. That should amplify her voice long enough, at least, to tell the people that their leaders needed protection.

“People of Melbourne,” she said. She didn’t think her voice carried the same dramatic weight as Irene’s. Heads swivelled to look at her. “People of Melbourne, the revolution is here.” She couldn’t very well tell them that they worried for the safety of their leaders, walking into what could well be a trap. “Follow me,” she said instead, “To freedom!”

It was a short speech, but it did the job. The crowd responded with an enthusiastic cheer.

Gabby grabbed her by the hand as she made her way out the door. “I’ll be looking after them here,” she said. She stretched on her toes to kiss Cass on the cheek. “Good luck. Come home.”

 

The throneroom doors opened before them, and Claire was sitting on the throne.

Sitting on the throne, Irene could accept. Irene herself had considered sitting on the throne, to make a point. She had looked at her friends, and her comrades, and all the people who aided her in her the revolution, and contemplated which one she would place on the throne when they finally succeeded, to best show how it was just a _chair_.

When she’d imagined it, she hadn’t imagined they would be surrounded by uniformed guards, bearing the coat-of-arms that Irene herself had designed for Claire, emblazoned on their chests.

She hadn’t imagined the way Claire would be staring her, her dark eyes cold and impassive, all the warmth and humour gone from them.

She hadn’t imagined the way she would smile, cruelly, and say, simply, “I’m sorry.”

Behind them, the heavy doors closed with a _thud_.

 


	40. Chapter 40

Claire looked down at the figure in front of her. When Claire had met Irene – only days ago, she realised, mere days ago – she had been defiant. Claire watched – physically _saw_ – as that defiance drained out of her. The failure of the first uprising, her own near death, the loss of so many of her friends, and this final betrayal – it seemed to all hit Irene at once.

And then, when the last of it was gone, Claire watched as Irene drew herself up tall, all the same, met her eyes and said, “Don’t say it unless you mean it.”

Claire was going to tell the guards to kill her. She opened her mouth.

“Guards.”

Martyrdom wouldn’t be a problem. The people may love Irene, but the people would never know who was to blame. Or rather, they would know, and it wouldn’t be Claire.

“Seize her.”

Claire’s guards stepped forward and took Irene by the arms. They were outfitted in their new uniforms – oh, it had been to perfect when Irene had picked up the scrap of black fabric in Claire’s room and sewed that scarlet and sable snake. She had thought she would laugh at the irony, as the symbol that Irene herself had picked out for her was also the symbol of her demise. But some how, the victory felt hollow, unsatisfying. Irene glared at her, defiant even in defeat.

Claire opened her mouth to say the final words. If she left Irene alive, she would find a way to topple Claire’s new regime. Claire knew it. It was time for her to die, once and for all.

But when she spoke the words, all she said was, “Take her away.”

The guards turned and began to march Irene from the throne room. They would take her out a back door – no need to parade her through the streets; that would only increase her chance of escape. They pushed aside a tapestry and began to lead her down one of the long and darkened corridors that wound deep below the castle.

Claire turned back to her court. One last confrontation and it would be time to begin her reign.

At the other end of the hall, the heavy doors swung open with a bang.

Perfect timing.

 

“Can _nobody_ in this country stay _dead_?”

It was Ariel, of course.

“Did you really want me to?”

Claire got to her feet. Her cloak swished satisfyingly behind her as she strode down from the dais to face Ariel.

He looked, to be honest, absolutely shocking. His usually already pale skin was a dull, unpleasant sort of grey, puckered here and there with pink burns. She didn’t know, to be honest, whether he’d ever truly died, but damned if he didn’t _look_ like it.

“Of course not,” Claire said. “What was it you said, after all? I need you? I can’t rise to the top without you?” She opened her arms wide, long sleeves trailing, and gestured at the throne room, already decked out in her royal – no, _imperial­_ – colours of sable and scarlet. “How right you were. It wouldn’t be truly complete without you to watch me rule.” And of course, to function as an oh-so-convenient scapegoat.

She was glad, as he stood before her, a shadow of his former self, that she’d left him alive. She’d known he would turn up right at this moment – it was the last chance he had, before she had absolute power. And so, of course, she’d factored it into her plan. The angry crowd outside would see Ariel attack with whatever army he had managed to scrape together. They would hear, tragically, that their leader and her closest confidantes had fallen in the fray, but Claire – who had always been waiting to provide them with arms – would seize emergency powers, which she would maintain long enough to get the nation back on its feet.

Of course, that could take a while…

 “Oh no,” said Ariel. “I’m not here to watch you rule. But I couldn’t simply let you die in the labs. Where would be the fun in that? Where would be the sport? But here you are, powerful, magical, in control of a country, and now, _now_ is the moment that I can bring you down.”

Claire scoffed. “You expect me to believe that you _let_ me live, just for the thrill of the chase? Don’t be absurd, Ariel. You’re weak. You’re – dead? Are you dead?”

“Technicalities.”

“You let me go by a freak accident where one of your experiments was stronger than you expected. You let me stab you because you’re far too easily distracted. And now you expect to wander in here and _take_ my kingdom from me? Don’t be ridiculous, Ariel. You and what army?”

“This one.”

Claire had expected Ariel to have amassed someone, a small group, maybe, to help with his last grab for power.

She hadn’t quite predicted the horde of undead that started pouring through the doors behind him.

Ariel was smiling. There had been setbacks, admittedly, but overall, things had worked out oh so very well. Claire had the revolutionaries all trapped in one room. He’d seen the angry crowd outside was about to see that she had tried to kill their darling leader, and then Ariel would be here with his lovely undead army, to do away with Claire, and then, perhaps, remind them when they tried to fight back that these people were their _loved ones_.

No doubt Claire had seen it coming. But she didn’t know about the ace up his sleeve. The mind control had taken some effort – that was magic there, not science, and finding a wizard at the Academy to work with him had involved a lot of threats, and several ancient texts’ worth of bribery . But it had worked, and he was about to test it out.

“Secure the perimeter!” Ariel ordered his soldiers.

His soldiers – his wonderful little undead mind-controlled children – marched obediently. They would surround the castle. They’d studied the maps. They knew what to do. Some of them were a little slow, loitering behind him. That was to be expected. It wouldn’t work quite as well with every single one. They would get there. Now all he had to deal with was Claire, and the revolutionary leader already in tied up in front of him.

“Step down from the dais, Claire. Your reign is over.”

“Oh no,” said Claire. “I’m only just getting started.”

Ariel folded his arms. There was a pawn in front of him, and he could play this game. “Well, the first start of any sensible reign would be to do away with its greatest threat.”

Claire raised her hands, and oh boy did Ariel regret the pyrokinesis. To be honest, that experiment had been _too_ successful. Well, undead soldiers had already died once. It wouldn’t hurt them to die again.

They had been trained to protect his life at all costs, and Ariel didn’t even need to make an order. The first row of soldiers – those who had remained behind to protect him – stepped forward, took the first waves of flames, and fell to the ground. The smell of burning flesh filled Ariel’s nostrils. Claire didn’t react, but to revolutionary leader visibly blanched.

“There’s plenty more where those came from,” said Ariel. “You’re going to have to try a little harder.”

Claire rolled her eyes, and the sigh she sighed was one of exasperation. “Do we have to do this?” she asked. “Can’t we talk it out like civilised people?”

“Last time we talked it out like civilised people,” Ariel countered, “You put a knife through my chest.”

“Oh come on. Shoulder.”

“It’s part of my torso.”

Claire raised her hands again, and Ariel’s next wave of soldiers stepped forwards.

The revolutionary leader didn’t just blanch this time. Her hands were tied, and Claire’s soldiers restrained her, but she strained forward all the same, face pale, eyes wide.

“ _Phoebe!_ ” she said, “ _No!_ ”


	41. Chapter 41

Phoebe knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was going to die. Somewhere else in her mind, she knew that she’d died already. She remember it all too well. It was hard to forget, the pain still throbbing in her chest from where the arrow had taken her down.

Another part of her mind, much stronger and more powerful, told her that first and foremost, she had protect Ariel. Ariel was the diminutive man standing behind her, without whom she would still be dead. If she didn’t do as he wanted, she would die again.

Phoebe didn’t know what side she was on anymore. Her mind was a blur of blood and pain and somebody else’s thoughts.

Out of the blur, Irene’s face. There were tears on her cheeks, and pain in her eyes, and somebody about her expression said _We’ve lost_. Phoebe screwed up her eyes, blinked, and managed to focus a little more. Irene was bound. Resisting, but tied up.

Phoebe remembered arguments. Somewhere, distantly, the memory echoed, of worried about Irene becoming a figurehead, and what they could do to ensure that the revolution continued in her absence. But there would always be some part of all of them that believed that if Irene died, the revolution was lost.

Phoebe couldn’t let that happen.

Phoebe stepped forward, as Ariel ordered. Across the room, a woman – who was she? – raised her arms, and flames shot towards Phoebe. She felt the heat strike her before she caught on fire. The pain was unbearable. For a moment, she couldn’t think past it. Her legs would give out beneath her. She would fall to the ground and she would die here, protecting some bloody _aristocrat_ who, like everybody else, wanted to throne for himself.

“ _Phoebe_!” The voice had dragged her out of her stupor, and she knew that if there was one she needed to do in this goddamned situation, it was to save Irene.

Her and Irene, they didn’t need much. Between them, they could bring down the government.

All the same, Phoebe had very few options left ahead of her. Most of them involved going down in flames.

It was really a matter of who she took with her.

 

Irene was relieved to see Phoebe – and alive, at that – and in other circumstances, exciting hugging would definitely had been a part of this reunion.

While Phoebe was on fire was not exactly the moment for it.

But Phoebe threw herself towards her with an enthusiasm that – well, it made Irene think of the days prerevolution, when enthusiastic hugs were not perturbed by ropes, and chains and soldiers.

Irene had nowhere to go.

Her soldiers, as it happened, were less loyal than one might have thought, and had plenty of escape options.

As a ball of flame hurtled towards them, they exchanged a glance over Irene’s head, nodded once, and scarpered.

Phoebe hugged her. _Gods_ did it hurt, and things were _burning_ , and Irene was sure, for yet another moment, that she was going to die.

Things were burning, and one of them was the ropes on her wrists.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Ariel, his voice dismissively. “Heroic sacrifice never works.”

He pulled a gun from his pocket, and fired it directly into Irene’s chest.

 “I think we’re done here,” said Ariel, and swept from the room.

A purple feather drifted to the floor behind him.

 

There was something fluttering at Sam’s window. Gabby looked up from where she waited. Smoke rose on the hill over the castle. She could hear the shouts in the street even from her.

A dark bird waited outside. Gabby pulled the window open, and in a cloud of soot, Lara rolled from bird to human form, landing on her feet.

“Lara!” Gabby knew now to step back and check for injuries before she hugged Lara. “You came back! Are you alright? Is—“

Lara shook her head. Her face was pale. “Claire betrayed us. Irene’s dead. Ariel’s got an army of mind controlled zombies, and...” Lara drew in a sharp, shaky breath. “We need to do something. They’re being _slaughtered_ out there, Gabby.”

Gabby nodded, slowly. She was a builder from a tiny town outside of the capital. This wasn’t her job. She had no idea what to do.

But she did remember something. She got to her feet, Lara with her, and made her way downstairs. Angus waited in the kitchen. “You know that cache of weapons you signed off on?” she asked. It was clear now that even getting Angus to sign had been simply a ruse.

“Yes.”

“Where exactly are they?”

 

The throne room was on fire. Claire had no way out – flames and soldiers stood between her and the door. She turned, trying to catch sight through the smoke of the tapestry that concealed the back door. There! She started to run towards it, but a harsh blow from one of Ariel’s soldiers knocked her to the ground.

Shakily, Claire got to her feet. The ground seemed to lurch beneath, and she stumbled, falling in an ungainly heap. Jaw clenched in concentration, white-knuckled hands gripping the edges of the throne for assistance, she dragged herself upright once more.

Beyond the flames, she could still see the tapestry. If she could just make it to the door…

With a shuddering _crash_ , the western part of the throne room collapsed. Claire barely dodged a piece of flaming wood that flew towards her, and began to make her slow, painstaking way across the room, stepping over the bodies.

When she reached Irene, she made the mistake of looking down. Irene’s unseeing eyes stared back at Claire, blood blossoming in the centre of her chest. Despite the circumstances, her face looked oddly serene.

Claire stepped over the body, and kept moving.

Three wobbly, painful steps later, she turned around.

She couldn’t leave Irene like this.

If Ariel could wake the dead, so could she.

 

Jason and Hamish stood back to back, barely holding off the circle of the undead that surrounded them. Jason wielded his wizard’s staff, bolts of blue lightning shooting down any of the undead the got to close.

To his surprise, when the fight came to close quarters, Hamish pulled out a sword.

“Aren’t you a _wizard_?” Jason asked, ducking as he said it to avoid a particularly nasty blow from one of the zombies.

“Yes,” Hamish answers indignantly.

“Shouldn’t you be using – _look left, Hamish!_ “ –Hamish looked left, and neatly dispatched an attacker—“shouldn’t you be using magic?” He was sure he’d heard Hamish chanting under his breath. “ _Weren’t_ you using magic?”

“To stop us burning to death,” Hamish answered. “Haven’t you noticed there’s less smoke around us than there should be?”

“I hate to think how much smoke there _should_ be.” There was blood dripping down one side of Jason’s face, and he could barely breath. He was sure the only thing keep him standing was sheer force of revolutionary will.

“Besides,” Hamish continued, “There’s something immensely satisfying about hand-to-hand combat, you know? Swords are very present. They’re very _real_.”

“Have you ever learnt to use a sword?” It appeared that he had, given they were both still alive, but it seemed unlikely he would be better at it than at the magic he’d spent most of his life studying.

“Of course!”

“Good,” said Jason. “Because we’re not losing this fight in the name of your aesthetic.”

“No faith,” he thought he heard Hamish mutter. “No faith.”

Whatever Hamish’s aesthetically pleasing sword may be contributing, they very much were losing the fight. The undead closed in around them. As soon as one was knocked down, another stepped up to take their place. Jason’s face was sticky with blood, one eye barely open.

“Hamish,” he said. He was out of breath now, and he should be saving his energy, but he figured this was a statement worth getting out. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

“You too, Jason,” said Hamish. “You’re a good man.”

Jason barely heard him, intent on warding off the attacks that were coming at him from all sides. He knew he couldn’t do this much longer.

It barely registered when the zombie in front of him fell to the ground that Jason hadn’t caused that himself. He didn’t associate the series of loud _cracks_ he heard with his enemies collapsing to the ground. He was too busy staying alive.

It wasn’t until enough of them had fallen that he caught a glimpse through the melee of he and Hamish’s saviour. She was standing a short way off, a smoking gun in her hand.

Behind her was a crowd of people, every one of them armed, every one of them wearing some scrap of the red of the revolution.

Jason had never been so happy to see Gabby in his life.


	42. Chapter 42

“You’ve get to get us to Ariel’s lab!” Jason said. It wasn’t the greeting Gabby deserved, but in the middle of a revolutionary war, he didn’t have time to tell her how grateful he was for her arrival. She had a gun and she knew her way around the castle and that was exactly what he needed right now.

With Gabby and Cass leading the way, they reached the lab without difficulty. It only took one shot fired at the lock to get the door open and then they were inside – these ‘guns’ were really an excellent invention.

Jason expected Ariel would be here. Anyone who had orchestrated an entire undead army to take over the country for them would have the sense to hide somewhere safe until it was complete.

What he didn’t expect was the smile that broke out on Ariel’s face when they walked through the door.

He definitely wasn’t expected Ariel to step forward and embrace Hamish, with an enthusiastic, “Just the man I wanted to see!”

 

Hamish stepped back from Ariel’s arms and watched as Cass’ face morphed into one of confusion. He had expected shock, and horror, and a whole host of emotions.

The idea that she simply wouldn’t understand what he had done – _that_ was somehow too much for him.

“Do you—“ She looked back and forth between Hamish and Ariel, her face a mask of incomprehension. “You know each other?”

Ariel was unconcerned with Cass’ feelings. “About time you showed up,” he said to Hamish. “Your spells are – shoddy, let’s say.  Decidedly fucking shoddy. One of my zombies managed to _sacrifice herself_ \--”

“ _Your_ spells?” Cass was still casting confused glances between them. Hamish could _feel_ his stomach sinking.

Jason was, unfortunately a little more cynical than Cass, and quicker off the mark.

He rounded on Hamish, his face – which Hamish so rarely saw in a cruel expression – hard and angry. “ _Your_ spells?”

“It was just an academic consultation,” Hamish said. “He had an interesting question and then—“

They had spent the day surrounded by carnage. They were standing in a laboratory where corpses lay on tables, waiting to be reanimated. Phoebe was dead. Irene was dead. “Does this _look_ like an academic consultation to you?” Jason asked. Is that what you’re bloody seeing here? Because I’ll show _you_ a fucking _academic consultation_!”

Jason, with several years of magical training, swung his fist and hit Hamish squarely in the face.

“There’s a war on,” said Cass. “I don’t have time for this.”

Gun in her hands, she turned and left the room, Gabby behind her.

“I had no choice!” Hamish protested. “By the end I had no choice!”

Behind him, he could hear Ariel laughing.

“And at the _start_?” Jason spat back.

“It was just academic! I didn’t know he was going to _use_ the—“

“Mind control spells that work on the undead? Isn’t that a little _specific_ for an _academic question_?”

“Oh, he knew what he was doing,” said Ariel. “And if you don’t mind, Hamish, I’d like you to get on with it.”

“I knew what I was doing,” Hamish answered, “But I had no choice! He would have _killed_ me! And then Ca--”

“Then you should have died,” Jason retorted.

“I—“

“I don’t care about your excuses. If you made these spells, you can undo them.”

“I can’t—“

Jason hefted his staff. Hamish flinched. “I’ll deal with Ariel,” Jason said. “Fix this."

 

It was hard to concentrate on the magic; harder still when he was suffering from smoke inhalation and a crisis of conscious, and Jason and Ariel were engaged in a vicious fight behind him.

Hamish had never meant to betray Cass, not really. It had just seemed, whenever Ariel turned up with some new question, and some new threat, that there was no other way out. His only solace had been that if nobody knew of their relationship, Ariel would never think to threaten Cass.

And then, of course, when she and her revolutionary friends had sought his help, the connection had become apparent. And then he truly had no choice.

“Get on with it!” Jason yelled from behind him. Ariel may be dead already, but Jason had hardly had an easy day. Hamish could hear his breath rasping in his throat as he fought with Ariel.

“I’m trying.”

Undoing a spell was always harder than doing it. Hamish was a very good wizard, but even he didn’t know if he was that good. But there was nothing else for it. He had no time to consult notes, to plan his words, to lay any sigils. All he could do way pray, and start to chant.

Behind him, he heard a thud. He quickly turned his head. Jason lay prone on the ground, Ariel standing over him. Jason’s staff was discarded on the floor, several feet away.

“Please, Hamish,” Jason managed to gasp.

“Give me one minute!”

“I don’t think he has one minute,” said Ariel coldly. He had a gun in his hand.

And then – _yes_. “Oh no,” said Hamish, as the words to the chant he needed suddenly fell into place in his head. “I think he does.”

Ariel slumped to the ground.

Outside, Cass and Gabby were greeted with silence.

“Wasn’t there—“ Gabby wasn’t sure how she meant to finish that sentence. _Wasn’t there a battle?_ Seemed like such a silly question. All there was now were bodies, smoke, and the people Gabby and Cass had mustered and armed , looking lost, exhausted, relieved.

“It’s over,” said Gabby. She turned to look at Cass, who was smiling, warily.

“He must have undone it,” Cass said. Her smile grew.

 

Irene woke up to faces leaning over her. They weren’t all there. Her mind was fuzzy, hazy, and she couldn’t remember who was supposed to be here. All she knew was that someone was missing.

“It’s over,” said Jason simply. The look on his face – was it happiness? Relief? Defeat? Irene couldn’t say. Her vision was too hazy, and _gods_ did everything hurt.

“Over?” Her voice came out in a croak, her throat thick and scratchy and dry. “What…”

“We won.”

Beside him stood Lara. She was smeared not with the neatly-applied soot that they used when they wanted to disguise her, but with the remnants of smoke, her hair singed and her eyes red. Jason had one arm tight and protective around her shoulders. As Irene watched, he dropped a soft kiss onto her hair.

“We… won?” This wasn’t the time to tell Jason that ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ wasn’t quite what this was about, but _equality_ and _justice._ He held out a hand to her, and, painfully, Irene struggled to her feet.

There was something at nagging at the back of Irene’s head. “And Claire?” she asked.

“She saved you,” said Jason. “But she didn’t survive the fire.”

Irene nodded. There was nothing else to say.

“The people are waiting for you,” Jason said.

It occurred to Irene, as she got to her feet, and the world swam around her, that she wasn’t in a bed in her home, or in the Corkman, as she had originally thought. Around her, the blackened remains of the castle still smoked. A crowd watched on, the low hubbub ringing painfully in her ears.

As she became more steady – clinging to Jason all the while for support – she realised they were all watching her. Jason was right. They were waiting.


	43. Epilogue

Six months had passed. Irene’s burns had healed, although some scars never would. The burned hall was gone, and replaced with the people’s first parliament. Irene stood up from her chair – for nobody would take a dais here, nobody would be anything but equal – and she surveyed the room. Jason sat on the other side. Lara had returned home to Caloundra, and although Irene didn’t doubt he missed her, he looked happy. Cass, Hamish, Gabby, Sam, both Laurens and even Paul were present.

Delegates had even come from far off lands to see Irene address the people at the opening of what she proudly called ‘The First Parliament’. “People of Melbourne – _citizens_ of Melbourne, today I stand before you as your democratically elected president, and you before me, as equals, as nobody’s subjects. Today, I announce to you that Melbourne is a _free city_ , and I open the first democratically elected people’s parliament.”

As one, the crowd got to their feet, and their roar swelled in Irene’s ears. As they quieted down – and it took quite some time – Irene looked at them, smiled – to herself, and said, “Yes. The democratically elected people’s parliament. That is splendid. That smells of revolution.”


End file.
